Tag Archives: creative writing

Dissociative Fugue…

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Patient Name : Unknown

Sex : Male/Female

Age : Approx. 35 – 85

Date of Admittance :  22/06/2007

Patient Notes :-

Patient was brought to us on the evening of 22/06/2007. She was found wearing jeans, sweater [from Top Shop], and only one wellington boot.

Police were called after an altercation occurred in The Booze Bucket off-licence, Dorchester High Street, when the owner of the premises tried to forcibly restrain the patient from emptying bottles of Campari on the floor before placing them in the shop window.

The patient is now under observation at River Piddle Hall House, in the care of Dr. Clive Mutterfort, DGM, MRCOG, MClinPscychol, MFFP, DCH, PhD, GCSE.

Questioning reveals that the patient has no recollection of who she is or where she is from. Her description does not match any missing person records in our missing persons database.

Other than two minor injuries, a twisted ankle and slight bruising to the head, the patient appears to be in good health.

The patient becomes overly distressed and anxious upon seeing a bottle, whether in reality or as a picture in a magazine; although It has been observed that the patient is particularly peaceful when watching episodes of either Eastenders or Coronation Street – despite both these programmes having pubs as their social focus.

25/06/2007 The patient asked for a notepad and pen….

Easter at Mogwash Manor

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Glory

And so it came to pass that I considered myself to be something of an archetypal alchemist, a Shaman of the highest order, I was indeed a deity in demand; my alliterative alliterating appreciated from Adelaide to Alabama, Melbourne to Maidenhead, from Hollywood to Hollyoaks. From far and wide people were unravelling the clues from my writings, which would direct them to the heart of Mogwash in search of the elusive ‘Bottle of Greed’. I intended to assist my faithful followers in whichever way I could, to be close at hand when they made the exciting discovery that would change their lives forever. With this in mind I would often head out to the woods, marvellous mutt at heel, thermos and tupperware luncheon box in hand, so that I could sit in the bracken and await enthusiastic treasure hunters.
Sometimes no-one would pass by for several weeks, I would feel myself getting cramp in my right calf whilst losing all hope that the ‘Bottle of Greed’ would ever be discovered. My clues were obviously too obscure, too challenging, too mind-bendingly cryptic or perhaps just a bit too daft for my devoted disciples to decipher. Fortunately, through this fog of despondency, I managed to formulate yet another despotically devious plan. My genius, once again rose, like a phoenix from this ashes of despair…. yes, I had had another idea.

29 April 2007

Seek and Hide

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Truth

Sebastian sat back in his chair and frowned as he read the open Word document on his computer screen, mentally kicking himself for agreeing to help out with the Mogwash pantomime for the fourth year running. Not only was he expected to be in it, but he was now being asked to help out with writing the script as well. Rupert, the Pantomime director and village overlord, had kindly sent him a rough outline of the plot, it appeared to revolve around a series of clues that would guide the hero to a long lost fortune. Sebastian twitched and reached for his whiskey; what was it with the villagers of Mogwash? First it was Scarlet with her bizarre blog encouraging her readers to follow a series of clues to find a mysterious ‘Bottle of Greed’ – as if – and now Rupert had got in on the act with his clues to find a treasure chest in Never Never Land [loosely based on the Australian outback as an excuse to get someone to dress up as a kangaroo]. Had they all gone completely mad? Were Rupert and Scarlet in league with each other? Was Sebastian really nothing more than a fictional character inhabiting someone else’s narrative? Was the postman going to start giving him thinly disguised directions to the whereabouts of his mail? Had the milkman hidden his semi-skimmed and Greek yoghurt in a location yet to be disclosed? It was all getting out of hand. He wanted to lie down and sleep, he wished to wake up in a world without treasure chests, or bottles of greed; he wished to wake up in a world where everyone said what they meant – in a world without a clue.

Be careful what you wish for, typed Scarlet, sometime later in July 2014.

16 March 2007

The Cultural Relevance of The Pearl Necklace (Tales From Filching-under-Luddley, part 1)

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Revenge

As the long nights drew in and then drew out again, the ‘bottle of Greed’, now nothing more than a hazy yet somewhat expensive memory, lay undisturbed. A more pressing concern now consumed me. In my haste, whilst creating ‘bottled Revenge’, I had misguidedly seen fit to use my own hair and clothing to produce the wax effigy, all silly superstitious fears had been pushed aside as I dispassionately pierced the effigy of myself with pins. My bravado may have been misplaced because since the creation of ‘bottled Revenge’ I had unwittingly become the initiator of a series of social blunders leaving those around me, hurt, betrayed, confused and perhaps a bit cross. I began to feel that I had been possessed by a demented demon hell bent on malevolent mayhem.
A fine example of this was my first foray into ‘Bottled People’ (a new and exciting concept at www.wonky-words.com) and involved my best friend, Jules. My brief was to bottle her essence, to create a bottled representation of her character, of her soul, of her very being; to produce an object that reflected her innate charm, poise and sophistication. The pearl necklace bursting through the neck of her bottle is obviously symbolic of her sparkling, frothy personality, an idea conceived in what I believe was a moment pure unadulterated artistic genius.
Jules, inexplicably, didn’t see it this way.

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Bottled Jules

first published 2 February 2007

The Big Idea (Tales from Luddley-cum-Mogwash part 5)

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Greed

As Sebastian sat huddled in the bus shelter, drowning his sorrows in a bottle of Campari, hiding from marauding Mogwashian Mimers; Moonchild Etherington-Smythe was conversing with her ironing board and was expressing ironing boardness onto canvas. As Taramind Dewhurst took delivery of twelve pink sponges decorated with assorted plugs and plugholes and puzzled over the instability of representation; I was sitting at my kitchen table next to an ancient Rayburn, in my cosy country kitchen designing a website as an exhibition space for my bottles.

Although viewing life from different perspectives, what Sebastian, Moonchild, Taramind and myself all shared was belief in our own personal vision. At long last I had conceived what I considered to be ‘The Big Idea’. In my hands I held a glittering bottle, a smorgasbord of treasured trinkets, a bottle filled with priceless family heirlooms. This was a bottle of ‘Greed’. It was time (1.05am) to hide this bottle within the vicinity of Luddley-cum-Mogwash . . . time to put my cunning plan into action . . . of course it’d been done before, but what the hell . . .

Overwhelmed with gleeful delight at my sheer brilliance, I buried the bottle of Greed. It was sometime later that the fatal flaw, or to be more precise, flaws in my plan became apparent to me. In my excitement I had neglected to tell anyone of my fiendish scheme, furthermore, even if I had, I had left no indication as to how the bottle could be located. I hung my head in shame, how could I have been so stupid?

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Greed

And so was born the cunning plan within the cunning plan. Via my excellent website www.wonky-words.com I would leave my faithful loyal viewers a series of ingenious clues, engaging them in a fascinating, insightful, often informative, and some might say challenging journey, which would eventually lead to the ultimate reward, the bottle of Greed . . .

29 November 2006

Freud and Art

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Is art a substitute for gratification? According to Freud . . .

“There is, in fact, a path from phantasy back again to reality and that is – art. The artist has also an introverted disposition and has not far to go to become neurotic. He is one who is urged on by instinctive needs which are too clamorous; he longs to attain to honour, power, riches, fame and the love of women; but he lacks the means of achieving these gratifications. So, like any other unsatisfied longing, he turns away from reality and transfers all his interest and all his libido too, on to the creation of his wishes in life. There must be many factors in combination to prevent this becoming the whole outcome of his development; it is well known how often artists in particular suffer from partial inhibition of their capacities through neurosis. Probably their constitution is endowed with a powerful capacity for sublimation and with a certain flexibility in the repressions determining the conflict. He is not the only one who has a life of phantasy; the intermediate world of phantasy is sanctioned by a general human consent and every hungry soul looks to it for comfort and consolation. But to those who are not artists, the gratification that can be drawn from the springs of phantasy is very limited . . . a true artist has more at his disposal.”

Freud, 1917