For the past few days I have fallen victim to the disorder known as vacancy-between-the-ears. Contrary to popular belief, this malady does not mean that the head is entirely empty. There are, for example, certain fugitive thoughts that flit through, such as “I think I shall make another cup of tea” or “I shall pop out to the corner shop and spend my latest Old Halob subscription”. But when vacancy-between-the-ears strikes, the victim is hard pressed to have more interesting thoughts than these, and it is the more interesting thoughts that give rise, in the general run of things, to Hooting Yard postages.
So, for example, the idea of nipping out to buy a pouch of acrid Serbian tobacco does not lend itself to paragraphs of tremendous prose, of which postages are wrought. It is, of course, possible that something exciting may occur during the nipping-out, such as the sight of a flock of bitterns, or the inadvertent stepping into a puddle, or perhaps a religious revivalist meeting with hymns and tambourines and hellfire-and-brimstone preaching. But one of the distressing effects of vacancy-between-the-ears is that even diversions such as these fail to set the cranial synapses a-snapping. The scribbler is bereft.
In these circumstances, the best thing to do is to embrace the vacancy and make no effort to cram anything into it. There will be the usual cupboard o’ stuff at The Dabbler on Friday, but otherwise Mr Key has decided to wait for ideas to plop into his head, like manna from heaven.
Back soon.
It was being reminded of those frozen horse heads wasn’t it? Enough to put anyone off for a while.
My favourite cinematic horse’s head is still the one at the opening of The Tin Drum. Decomposing and tied to a length of rope it is thrown into the sea to catch eels. And so it does, in a manner most effective and stomach turning.
Those happy happy days as we waited for a new release from our own personal favourite German loony.
My vote would always go with Herzog but each to their own.
I’m sure we all wish that vacancy filled as soon as possible
I sympathise – my head gets so full of information that needs rationalising, sorting and acting upon that it just ‘crashes’ from time to time and I can’t do anything. My brain needs the computer equivalent of being switched off and on again, so at the earliest opportunity, I just go to sleep. Reset. All I need now is a little USB port hidden discreetly behind my right ear…
Mr Key deserves a hiatus, and I hope he will take the opportunity to go to an Abeyance Watcher’s Event … I can specially recommend the Evanescent Whey Cabaret.
Hmmm,
I have some of the same symptoms you describe.
I think there must be something ‘going around’.
I’ll try rubbing some Vick into my head and let you know if things improve at all.
O.S.M. B:53