Episode 6

This is a Brighton bus in action. It is, as you can see, a red and cream bus. This is the same type, though perhaps not the same colour, as the bus that Peter and Dusty go riding on in episode 6. This one is actually on the Western Road, which is part of Peter's bus route in episodes 3 and 6.

I used to ride Brighton busses almost every day when I was writing One Among The Sleepless. I even wrote a lot of the book's plot and dialogue in notebooks while I was doing so. I remember taking photos of the interiors of the single and double deckers, noting down the details of how people behaved and generally used busses.
Obviously what happens in the novel with Peter and Dusty is totally fiction. But you do see some characters on busses. I actually saw the character that Dusty's appearance is based on from the window of a bus much like the one in the picture. I was sitting, just as Peter is in episode 3; head bumping on the glass and staring gormlessly out of the window. When suddenly, on North Street, I saw this big tramp with fuzzy hair and shades sitting at a bus stop. The guy came with me from that bus stop - but unlike Peter, when I say he came with me, I mean in my notebook - I wrote him down for future use. As for Peter, well, I guess he was the future use.
Spot Brighton
Palmeira Square is the stop where Peter's stop. Dusty checks out the view of Hove Lawns and the open sea. The houses are converted Georgians. We are indeed in the Brunswick region of Hove.

Episode 5: Live and Ugly

So, episode 5 is live and ugly. It took ages to do that scene outside Gaz's house, but I think it was worth it in the end. The worst thing in this one for me was when I realised I'd misread a word. I'd said 'physically undressed' when I'd written and intended, 'Psychically undressed'. Unfortunately I didn't notice until I was on the verge of posting it. Arggg! I had to take apart all the music bits and the vocal bits and then graft a SINGLE word onto the finished thing. Now for some of the more technically proficient among you, this wouldn't be difficult, but for me it was a 'mare. I use different programs for different processes and, well, let's say it was an assault course. However, it was , I think you'll agree, necessary: 'physically' and 'psychically' look similar on the page, but the buttons they push in our heads are hugely different. It's like the difference between ordering a bowl of spaghetti bolognese and a pig's head. If you intend one and somehow manage to communicate the other... well, it's confusing for everybody.

What else? I just bought a new microphone. It looks very cool, but I'm not sure yet how cool it actually is. I'm fiddling about with settings and stuff and trying to get the best out of it without actually reading any technobabble online about hertz and megahertz (have I even spelled that right?) For my lazy sins I'll probably end up sounding like a drunk dalek. That'll teach me.

I Was A Teenage Numanoid

In Episode 4, we learn that Wayne is what used to be called a ‘Numanoid’, that being a fan of British synth-rock pioneer, Gary Numan. The reason that Ellen is so familiar with Numan’s videos is because I have the video in question, ‘New Man, Numan’, which was released by Palace video yonks ago. I got it in a charity shop; I was thrilled. I ran home and played it endlessly, much to the annoyance of my wife. I then grabbed my copy of ‘I Die You Die’ waved it at her and said...

Well, actually this last bit didn’t happen. But I’d just like to state that I’m with Wayne on this one: Gary Numan, from 1979 – 1981, ruled my world. And ‘Replicas’ is one of the best records ever made by anybody, at any time, anywhere... in my humble opinion.

Oh, and a big hello to 'Country Girl'. Thanks for the comment, it was great to hear from you again. Tell that old man of yours he owes me an email.

Episode 4

So, after last week's farce, I wanted to get a guaranteed no-hassle upload, and if there was going to any bother, I wanted to deal with it before Wednesday - not during and after. Fortunately, #4 went up without a hitch and is available now.

Yes, I know I should find a day and stick to it: going out regularly, like a favourite TV or radio show, but these things take time to find their groove. When I find a time that really suits me, I'll settle into it. I aim to be up between 23.00 Tuesday and 23.00 Wednesday (GMT), ideally Wednesday morning UK / Ireland time.

Yesterday, my former band mate, Chris Hurst, sent me a piece of music he recorded a few years ago as, 'Lost Dog', called 'Disturbance'. I love it; a subtle sense of menace: the ticking clock, a child's sinister clockwork toy, and then the relentless 12-bar riff. I've tweaked it a bit for use in the podcast; you can hear it on the outtro, and will from now on.

It's nice really. All the music on the podcast comes from my old bandmates: we used to be in a band called The Premonitions. We rocked (well rocked-ish) Windsor and Slough in the late 80's and early 90's. We're still all good mates and whenever we get together we talk about doing a gig again. Although, outside of our wives and girlfriends, I can't think who else would want to come and see us.
Besides Chris, who played the guitar, there's Steve Chapman (bass), he's now living in Westport, Ireland, and playing in an on-going and ever-changing project called 'Blahfishend'. He provided the opening piece of music, 'Bitch', which you can download (if he's got his act together) from www.myspace.com/blahfishend
And then there's Luc Woods, who played the drums and was, for a time at least, known by the sobriquet, 'Zero Pilot'. He gave me the dreamy background piece and the various music for the scene sigues.

Spot Brighton
Brighton-spotters don't have much to go on here: Richardson and West doesn't exist. It's a mish-mash of various 'kill-me-now' data entry temp jobs I had in the nineties. As for Wayne and Lucy's house, I can't say yet. I've given no clues in the text, and shan't spill any beans here either.

OK, time to go to bed. This has been fun; I really must do a kind of back-blog and write comments on previous episodes.

Cheers, for now.

Mike

Sirens, Bells and DER DER DER

Saturday in Dublin. I went to the north side of the river and poked around in charity shops before taking a deep breath and plunging into the teeming hell that is Henry Street and Mary Street. There must’ve been a billion people swarming about in dense, chaotic streams that were almost impossible to break out of once you became entangled in them. It was nightmarish; I struggled through the crowd, trying not to get swept past the shops I wanted to visit and flung out at the far end of the street. I managed – somehow – to clamber through the bumbling bodies to reach the Apple shop. Here I stood with my face pressed to the window like a street urchin outside a cake shop. Oh, Garageband, how I long to run my fingers through your wondrous new podcasting functions that I’ve read so much about in ‘You Want It But Can’t Afford It’ magazine. I went home with a newspaper and birthday card for my dad... and a price pamphlet from the Apple store. Who knows, maybe I’ll shake out my piggy bank yet. O

nce home I started thinking about Episode 4 of One Among The Sleepless. Due to the flap around getting Episode 3 up and running earlier in the week, I’m a few days behind in my schedule. I usually try and get the lion’s share of the recording done on Thursday and Friday, then do editing and re-takes on Saturday on Sunday, and any bagging and tagging on Monday and Tuesday. The problem with recording the whole thing on Saturdays is that everyone else in the apartment building is off work. And when people are off work, they like to play their music loud and share it with the rest of the city. Add to that the police / ambulance sirens that go past every two minutes, the church bells (Sunday is impossible – it’s like a herd of Quasimodos having a beer and bells party), people shouting, people chucking trash into the skips outside, people slamming doors; it’s endless. We live in an apartment in the centre of the city. Good for getting to work; bad for peace and quiet. Still, somehow I’ve managed to get most of the recording down despite the cacophony.

I’ve had to call it a day now because the chap next door has decided to share his music with me. It sounds like someone rhythmically pressing a big bass button that goes DER... DER... DER. Now we don’t want that on the podcast do we?

I’ll obviously try and get all the sirens and bells out of the final recording, but there may be a few left in the final edit. Sometimes you say something just perfectly and you can’t improve on it. So, if there’s a bell or something in the background, it’ll just have to stay there. Think of it as ambience. After all, what book about noisy neighbours would be complete without a bit of neighbourhood noise?

Until the next time...

OK, so there I there I was, tying the noose around the light fitting and getting all set to kick the chair out from under me when an email arrives from Libsyn. They’ve found the problem and have sorted it out: ‘Episode 3’ is go.

I was relieved to learn that my file isn’t in the pay of The Mob – it wasn’t a corruption thing. It was all to do with service upgrades and technical stuff that picks other stuff up - or doesn’t. Fortunately whatever needed doing is done and the Milky Bars are on me!

(For readers outside the UK, that’s a TV ad reference. Basically Milky Bar is a small bar of white chocolate that gets dished out by a blond kid with freckles in a cowboy outfit whenever things go well for him.) (OK, so I’m not blond or freckled, but I look as good in a cowboy outfit as the next man, especially when I’m biting down victoriously on a bar of white chocolate.)

‘Episode 4’ - in which Gaz eats a grape, Wayne eats a banana and Peter eats a slab of 100% pure terror in McDonalds – will be online (God willing) when the world wakes up next Wednesday morning.

Thanks again for your patience and understanding.

Mike

Hi, Mike here

If you're here reading this then youprobably came via my website, which you went to to get 'Episode 3' and found you couldn't. Well you're not alone. Neither can I.
I've uploaded it to Libsyn, deleted it, uploaded it again... still nothing. I'm now waiting for the guys at libsyn to get back to me with some kind of solution to the problem.

If anyone has any practical notions on why the hell 'Episode 3' won't download, I'd love to hear them. itunes suggest the file may be corrupted. What the hell does that mean? Is it taking backhanders from The Mob? Is it defective? If so, why? Argh!

What can I do? I can, and am going to carry on recording. 'Episode 4' is going into production today.
Please bear with me while this thing gets sorted out. I'm powerless to change anything at my end and can only wait for Libsyn to come back to me.

If necessary, I will move the location of the Podcast to another server, but I obviously hope that won't be necessary.

In the meantime, keep the faith, I'm not going to let anybody down and abandon this project; I will get the rest of this book up and online soon. When, where and how remains to be seen, but keep tuned into this blog for details. If you need to hear more One Among The Sleepless before then, why not listen to '1' and '2' again? You can't get too much of a good thing, can you?
OK, maybe too much whisky might be a problem. And cigarettes, heroin, chocolate cake, sunlight... in fact when you come to think of it, maybe the problematic good things are many. But hey, 'One Among The Sleepless' isn't one of them (at least until you get to Chpter 14, then things start to carry a health warning).