hard egg news

Last night I had a visit from
The Association of Ideas.

“We see you haven’t posted anything
on your blog today,” the Association
Rep said.

“Are you from WordPress?” I asked.

“We’ve already told you, we are from
The Association of Ideas.”

“But it’s four in the morning!”

“The internet is a twenty-four/seven culture, my friend. Now, about this blog…”

“I know, I know, didn’t you read the last post? I’ve been ill.”

“Are you suffering from writer’s block?”

“I don’t get that, no, I’ve had ‘Man-flu’.”

They looked at me as if to say ‘Yeah, right…’ and brought out a thick wad of papers bulldog-clipped together which they began flipping through.

“It seems you are creatively overdrawn,” the Rep assessed. “You haven’t made any cultural or social deposits to your brain recently, don’t you feel ashamed?”

“I haven’t had time…”

“Oh, you can make time.”

“I’ve not been up to seeing friends, feeling and looking like this,” I said, blowing my nose for effect.

The Association Rep ignored my pathetic attempt at guilt-tripping and continued to flip through the vast wad of papers. I couldn’t see what was printed on them.

“But I’ve been working really hard too, it’s been difficult with having flu as well,” I said in a huff and sneezed for real. “Oh bastard!”

“You’ve only yourself to blame,” The Rep said, looking up and waving the flapping paper ream in their hand, “If you’d have stuck to your five-a-day stimuli, this would never have happened. What have you been reading?”

“I’ve been too tired.”

“Have you seen any films recently: black & white; or foreign with subtitles, preferably both?”

“No.”

“Nothing art-house or independent?”

“I’ve only seen a bit of tele…”

“My dear boy, you need cultural roughage, not processed TV pap.”

“Look, I haven’t even left the house all week, except to put the bins out on Wednesday. Oh, and I managed the supermarket on Friday.”

“Hardly the Guggenheim, is it?” the Association Rep gave a withering look. “Have you seen any paintings or photographs that have caused you to tilt your head to one side by the weight of thought the image has provoked?”

I could only hang my head in shame.

“This is worse than I thought, I’ve never seen such a rapid descent into the cultural void, next you’ll be taking your real life experiences from other people’s comments made on Facebook or reader’s letters at the back of women’s magazines. You need to get creatively fit again.”

“But how?”

“By getting out there and experiencing this wonderful world of ours first hand, stop all this work, work, work – you’ll make yourself ill again.”

The Association Rep had a point.

“And start writing again, you know you only get miserable if you don’t write. I want to see a great blog post here next week.”

“Yes sir!”

“Or else…” the Rep threatened.

“Or else what?”

“Or else we’ll start posting embarrassing memories from your childhood online instead.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“We would.”

“Oh no, not the one where I gave myself a medieval pudding bowl haircut when I was ten?”

“That we didn’t know about, but thank you, if you don’t come up with something good next week that’s the first story that’ll be going up.”

I sat bolt upright. That was embarrassing.

“Now, if I were you I’d stop worrying about the past and relax and get some sleep, tomorrow’s a big day, you’ll start writing again.”

So, I slumped back on to my pillow, closed my eyes and drifted back into the Land of Nod, where The Association of Ideas left me to my dreams.

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Ever had The Association of Ideas visit you in the middle of the night?