From Crap to App

You’ll be glad to know that my slight detour into the world of erotic fiction is over. All 42,656 words of the “book” (plus one illustration) are now published and will reappear in the Amazon store within, I think they said, 72 hours. That’s assuming it passes the review stage. There’s nothing in it that’s even remotely explicit (lots of novel euphamisms and some deliberately cod Dame Barbara Cartland which is always fun to write) so I’d be surprised if there are any problems. It belongs in the same category as the Philip Schofield cartoon from earlier in the week, the response to which really encouraged me to go back and release the book. Wish I could be less uptight and relaxed about the more bohemian side to my nature. Wish I could be less uptight.

I’m not certain I’ll promote it beyond this blog. I might put a link to it in my Books section. Might mention it on the podcast. Not too excited by the idea of going on Twitter and announcing to the world that I’ve written a book of erotic short stories containing various degrees of political incorrectness. It will depend entirely on what feedback I get (if any).

Tonight, I plan to draw. In the middle of this whole distraction, I thought of a really good gag that I’ve been eager to start. I say “really good” but I mean it made me laugh.

In other news: I see the government’s tracking app has been ditched. Naturally, everybody is now saying it was inevitable but I don’t remember this much scepticism those many weeks back when I wrote a blog post predicting it wouldn’t work. Back then it was Britain leading the way doing what other nation’s could only dream of doing.

That’s why I think it’s the most egregious of all the government’s mistakes over the past six months. I’m hardly an expert in this tech but to this dumb former programmer it’s was blatantly obvious that it wouldn’t work. It was never an elegant solution, requiring too much centralisation of data (the word “government” is synonymous with “bloatware”), and flying in the face of what I knew Apple and Google would allow any developer to do with their hardware. In more simple terms: most people understand that Android and iOS just don’t get along. Hell, I’ve known Bluetooth headphones that don’t want to communicate with my Android phone. Plus, it relied on human nature, God’s original malware.

Speaking of which, am I wrong to feel cautiously optimistic about the COVID numbers? Or is that another symptom of lockdown? A couple of weeks back, I said on the podcast that it felt like they might be creeping up. I’d seen quite a few posts by doctors and nurses on Twitter talking about increased bed occupancy on their wards. That’s certainly the situation in a few states in the US but, over here, I haven’t noticed it at all.

Not saying I’m leaving lockdown anytime soon but I’ve yet to see anything that hints towards an early second wave in July. I guess it all largely depends on how the lockdown goes and whether people will grow bored of the restrictions like they eventually grew bored of lockdown.

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Why Dunciad.com?

It’s a cool domain name and it was available. Yes, I know. Available. Crazy, isn’t it?

Really?

Yes. It also helps that it’s also my favourite satire written by Alexander Pope, one of the most metrically pure English poets who also knew his way around a crude insult or two. If you’ve not read it, you should give it a try.

So this is satire, right?

Can’t deny it. There will be some. But it’s also an experiment in writing and drawing, giving work away for free in order to see how many people are willing to support a writer doing his thing. It’s the weird stuff that I wouldn’t get published elsewhere in this word of diminishing demands and cookie-cutter tastes.