Moaning for England

Warning: This post contains high amounts of bitching and whining

I have been bereft of the quiz spirit for the past few days. This means that quiz question writing rate is down, enthusiasm for doing quizzes is sliding towards the non-existent end of the scale and that my wish to do anything to do with quizzes is cast far from my mind into the mental file marked "Blah blah blah". It may be that I just need a holiday where I don't have to think. I see a white sand beach and think of staring at the ocean for hours on end letting the sun rays grill my skin a caramel tan. Such a daydream makes me smile and fills me with a blinding but warm white light. All other thoughts make me feel like a wet, broken lettuce leaf. So, as you might be able to surmise, I'm in a meh frame of mind.

But it hasn't stopped me from starting the quiz book I'm going to do for Lulu.com. I reached 75 questions today and having pumped out this middling overture my mental-physical engine went kaput and so I went back to reading normal books and flopped on to my bed to sleep one off for about an hour in the middle of the day. Now you may think 75 questions is quite a healthy start, yet I say PAH! Pathetic! That's nothing. Vaporised diddly squat. It's the equivalent of me booting my laptop, breathing on the keyboard and switching it off after five minutes. Or something like that.

I can see some motivation galloping at me from a spot on the schedule horizon. I'm thinking that the coming quiz league season will provide enough fodder for these here pages and I won't have to make silly excuses as to my utter laziness and ennui, because once you start doing things then things will take care of themselves and I won't have to think about things too much because the things will have taken over and driven me along the tracks of life into the black abyss of the barren, torpid future.

The nights draw in and us quizzers retreat into private pub rooms to numb each other's grating and insipid thoughts with rounds of trivia. I'm wondering: can I sound anymore morose? Can I sound anymore like that painter from the Fast Show? "Black!!! As black as..."

That's not quite how I feel. I only write such bleak things because right now I really should be earning my bread by doing freelance work. Instead I write blog posts and visit every single bookmarked site of mine which I think might waste five minutes of my time in a relatively painless manner.

I was going to do it last night. Then I watched V for Vendetta (horrifically facile), A Cock and Bull Story (flimsy and could have done better) and Inside Man (quite satisfying and twisty) in one go and realised that I was forcing myself to accomplish absolutely nothing.

Okay, deep breath. I'm going to work these noisy, clacky keys in a sentient fashion and get me some writing done. Writing that is not streaked with an unhealthy pessimism.

Remember to send me back your CQs
Oh, I still want you to return your Colossus quizzes. I think I have about 50 in so far and you have about two weeks to get yours in if you still feel like returning it to me so I can tear the rubbish answers apart with red marker pen and cackling evil laughter. How I love doing that.