Uncategorized | Guy Portman's Blog

Reading, Ruminating & Household Appliances.

Sep 11 2020

It’s Friday again; it came around quick. My latest book, The Gazebo, has got some reviews on Amazon US, Amazon CA and Goodreads, but not on my native Amazon UK as of yet.

As for me, I’ve been writing, reading and mourning the demise of my washing machine. It’s standard procedure for people to say how much better x or y was back in the day. In the case of household appliances, it really does hold true. Contemporary washing machines and dishwashers can’t hold a candle to their predecessors of the 1980s and early 90s. My household was graced by only two washing machines during my childhood and adolescence, and the first was replaced through choice, in favour of a larger model.

I’ve been through five washing machines thus far during my adult life. I’m presently waiting for number six to arrive. The rot set in with no.5 when all the wash cycles stopped working apart from quick wash. When it finally stopped spinning earlier this week, the writing was on the wall. If life expectancies are anything to go by, I’ll get through another nine, and that’s assuming the things don’t regress further.

Bosch – once a symbol of robustness and quality, now one of fragility and incompetence. Old habits die hard – I’ve just bought another. This one’s the dead one.

Here is a slow worm I stumbled across on my afternoon walk yesterday.

My hedge got very scruffy during lockdown. It’s time to give it a cut with a chainsaw on a pole. It could be a disaster waiting to happen. Wish me luck.

Have a good weekend.

Humorous Fiction and A New Toy

Jul 03 2020

You know when you have no luck with something. It could be anything – but in my case it’s brush cutters amongst other things. I started off with the cheapest I could find. It weighed the same as an Atlas stone from World’s Strongest Man, and the engine overheated and switched itself off every two minutes. I then bought a Kawasaki which was pretty good until it wasn’t. As repairing it was proving to be a big undertaking, I upgraded this week to the Ferrari of brush cutters – a Stihl FS70. It cost an arm and a leg, but I am hoping it will be just what the doctor ordered. I will be taking it out for a test run soon.

Here’s my dog posing with his new tennis ball in my mown, but not brush cut garden.

I just got him this 2kg bag of charcoal dog biscuits from Amazon. What did we do before Amazon came on the scene? Surely life was less convenient. They might come in for a lot of criticism, but I for one am somewhat dependent on them.

My seventh book is currently being proofread. The Gazebo is a darkly humorous quick read, consisting of two stories.

Story One: Lust threatens to go horribly wrong in a tale featuring an unusual fetish and a gazebo.

Story Two: When an entrepreneur falls for a temptress, his life rapidly spirals out of control.

A lot of people have been getting a fair bit of reading done over Lockdown. I’ve done some, but not as much as many from the sound of things. Of late, my book choices have been somewhat eclectic. But I’m going to stick with my genre, humorous fiction, for a while. My next two reads will be:

Have a good weekend.

5 Dark Humour Books You Might Like

Jun 05 2020

Without further ado, here they are. Click on the links to read my reviews.

Choke by Chuck Palahniuk

Choke is in essence a social commentary about our innate craving for attention and the fundamental nature of addiction.

My Review: The protagonist, Victor Mancini, is a sex addict employed at an eighteenth-century historical re-enactment park. Victor attends various sexual addiction support groups, where he …(more)

Skagboys by Irvine Welsh

Skagboys is a work of Transgressive Fiction whose main focus is many of its characters increasing obsession with heroin.

My Review: Skagboys is the prequel to Trainspotting. Its colourful, mostly young characters hail from the Edinburgh port suburb of Leith. There is the bookish, unambitious …(more)

Spencer’s Risk by Andy Greenhalgh

Spencer’s Risk is a third person, thespian-themed work that offers an authentic insight into the mind of a compulsive gambler.

My Review: Spencer Leyton’s life is spiralling downhill. He has split from his wife, is virtually estranged from his kids, his career is in tatters, and he has a serious …(more)

Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut

Mother Night is a concise, ambiguous morality tale brimming with satirical observations and darkly humorous details.

My Review: During WWII, Howard W. Campbell was a prominent Nazi propagandist. Now he is languishing in an Israeli prison awaiting trial for war crimes …(more)

Women by Charles Bukowski

The concise, visceral story follows the exploits of ageing lowlife and Bukowski alter ego, Henry Chinaski.

My Review: Fat, ugly fifty-something Henry Chinaski is a degenerate drinker, gambler and womaniser residing in downtrodden East Hollywood.
After a lifetime spent toiling in …(more)

Lockdown Reading & Revelations

May 29 2020

Lockdown is starting to wind down here in the UK, it seems. As for me, I will be remaining in self-isolation. If there’s another way to live, I am not familiar with it. Besides, it has its perks, including reduced car fuel costs.

Not much of note has happened this week. On Monday, I found this nine quid box of Corona in the supermarket. It remains unopened, but that is poised to change.

You know when you have your schedule laid out for the day, only for a spanner to be thrown in the works? In this instance, it was discovering the hoover wasn’t performing its one function. It took ages to disassemble it, find the blockage and remove it. Mr Dyson’s hoover innovation infatuation doesn’t extend to inventing a non-blockable model, it appears. Dyson’s revolutionary wheel ball is all good and well, but I’d swap it for a blockage-free hoover any day of the week.

Someone was in for a treat. A dry pellet, broccoli, tomato and cheese feast. It could be the name of a Dominos Pizza, though I suspect my creation would be more appetising.

It’s been warm and sunny here in south of England every day for what seems like ages. Trigga has been enjoying the weather, as have I.

Some workers have been taking unusual precautions to protect themselves against the threat of Covid-19. Take my local supermarket worker for instance. Effective perhaps, if not a little concerning.

People are reading more during Lockdown, we are told. I want to try and utilise this trend to find more readers for my books. Presently, I am waiting for Amazon to get back to me about ways in which I can use my new Necropolis Trilogy series page to do just that; fingers crossed.

Like many authors, I don’t stick only to my own genre/s (dark humour/satire) when it comes to reading. Earlier this week, I picked up this kindle book for 99p following a recommendation on Goodreads. It’s a subject I know little about; and as I fancy myself to be something of a war historian dilettante, I thought why not?

No doubt you have read some good books over lockdown. If you have any suggestions, I’d be keen to hear them. Have a good weekend.

5 Things To Do During Lockdown.

May 01 2020

Lockdown continues to drag on here in the UK. Though there is light at the end of the tunnel, so we’re told. What with all the time people are spending at home, gardens have never had so much TLC. As it was raining this week, I took the opportunity to plant some hedges. You can pick the things up for peanuts at the moment. Planting my hedges entailed digging ninety holes.

And then it was time for the grass seed.

And then the wild flower seed.

Reading is a great way to wile away the time on lockdown. My current read is a morbid one.

I have been doing a lot of writing of late. My work in progress is a book of novella length, consisting of two darkly humorous tales, set for the most part in the upper echelons of English society. One of the tales has a supernatural theme.

Shopping was once a pleasure; it is now at best an inconvenience, at worst a nightmare. The queues to get into the supermarket are pretty horrendous and I try and stick to smaller shops. I’d been on the look out for these for over a month. If they didn’t come in a pack of six, this would constitute hoarding.

My fifth activity has been cleaning. Here is my dog sheltering on dry land after the floor was mopped.

Have a good weekend.

6 Disturbing Reading Recommendations

Feb 28 2020

It’s been a while since I dedicated a post to disturbing books – other than my own of course. Here are six disturbing reading recommendations. Click on the links to read my reviews.

The Road

The aptly named The Road is a bleak, minimalist post-apocalyptic novel.

My Review: A cataclysmic event has left the world in ruins, and almost everything and everyone is dead. In the absence of food, the remaining humans are reduced to …(more)

Marabou Stork Nightmares

This inventive book boasts parallel stories and different levels of awareness.

My Review: Roy Strang narrates this story from the hospital in which he is lying in a coma. It begins in South Africa, where he and his friend Sandy Jamieson are hunting the …(more)

Novel with Cocaine

Novel with Cocaine is a nihilistic novel about adolescence and addiction.

My Review: Set in the years immediately before and after the Russian Revolution, Novel with Cocaine follows the life of Vadim, a Moscow adolescent and …(more)

Haunted

This series of short stories explore a variety of themes, including the media-obsessed nature of society.

My Review: Haunted is about a group of writers, who have been assembled by the conniving Mr Whittier to attend a writers group. The location of the retreat is in an isolated theatre with … (more)

Dark Places

This dark psychological thriller boasts an unpalatable subject matter and reprehensible characters.

My Review: Libby Day was only seven when she witnessed her family being brutally murdered in their Kansas farmhouse. It was Libby’s testimony that saw her then teenage …(more)

Lolita

This highly controversial book is about a man’s infatuation with a twelve-year-old girl.

My Review: The protagonist, Humbert Humbert, is an intellectual with an all-consuming craving for young girls, or nymphets as he refers to them. After his wife leaves him for …(more)

Storms, Sustenance & Soul-Searching

Feb 21 2020

The UK has experienced some wretched weather of late. It hasn’t been that cold, at least not here in the south, but the rain has been something else. First there was Storm Ciara, then Storm Dennis. This rainbow made a fleeting appearance between deluges.

Both my dog and I have been relishing our new piece of furniture. It is proving to be an extremely soporific sofa.

British people generally only eat kebabs when they’re drunk. But the kebab van near me is so good, they are palatable even when sober. I was tipsy when I devoured this x-large one.

Wood pigeon breast is a particularly favourite of mine and readily available here in the countryside.

Currently, I am working on my latest darkly humorous offering. It will probably be of novella length and contain two stories. I will release more information in due course. I have also been trying to garner some interest in my other books. Sales picked up a bit in January, but this month has been disappointing.

Well, hope springs eternal, or at least that’s what they say. Have a good weekend.

A Stuttering NHS, Technical Glitches & A Prison Break

Aug 02 2019

Back in January I went to my doctor complaining of a sore heel. He said it was most likely plantar fasciitis. Following a seven month wait, I finally got my scan done at the hospital yesterday. NHS hospital waiting rooms are depressing places, and this one was no exception. There were all sorts in there – the destitute, the dependent, people on their last legs, and a woman in handcuffs attached to a police officer. A fellow patient sensing my feeling of impending doom turned to me and said, ‘The NHS is dying embers.’ Having nodded in agreement, I said, a little too loudly as it transpired, ‘Being in this waiting room is like staring into your own grave.’

She laughed shrilly at this, but the other patients within earshot did not. A pair complained to reception about my ‘negativity’, and I was banished to the corridor. It was like being back at school.

Out in the corridor, I commenced reading my new book – Papillon. You’ve probably heard of the book cum movie. It is about a prison break, or rather multiple prison breaks. It is riveting so far. I was on page 9 when I was called in for my scan. Sour-faced patients watched me traverse the waiting room. The scan took all of 115-seconds, which seemed rather inadequate after a 7-month wait. But the good news is that I am on the mend and should live to fight another day.

In other news my blog has technical PHP-related issues as I mentioned previously, and comments and the sharing functions aren’t working properly. But as I am migrating from WordPress fairly soon, I have decided to put up with these glitches for the time being. I appreciate your comments and apologise if I have not been able to respond to them because of this.

And that’s it for today. I must be getting back to Golgotha; the final instalment in the darkly humorous Necropolis Trilogy, featuring erudite sociopath Dyson Devereux. I am running a bit behind schedule and Golgotha is probably going to be released in the late autumn now. I will provide updates in due course.

The Week – the good, the bad & the ugly

Jul 26 2019

Another week bites the dust. I have just come back from a break in The Fens, and am now back at the grindstone trying to make up for lost time. For what it is worth I have categorised the week gone by into three categories.

The Good: There are few things as cathartic as being in the countryside. Here is a photo of a freshly cut Fens field taken shortly before the heatwave began in earnest.

More good … The local pub has Moretti on tap, and the butcher is of exceptional quality.

I wasn’t the only one enjoying The Fen food.

The Bad: I never thought I would live to see the day when it was 30C at 19:30 in Norfolk. I only remember a few days ever reaching that temperature when I was kid. Many will no doubt disagree, but it’s too hot for the UK in my humble opinion. And with the heat came the flies. There were so many on Monday, I could have been in Somalia.

More Bad … Sales of Necropolis and Sepultura (first two instalments in my black comedy trilogy) have been non-existent this past week. They had been performing okay of late. Hopefully this will be rectified soon. That’s called positive thinking.

The Ugly: My friends beat me in our air rifle target competition. Although I’ve had no practice of late it annoyed me immensely, especially considering we were using my gun.

But the ugliest thing this week is that I committed a cardinal sin.

Not sure how circumstances led to this, but this fashion faux pas/sartorial setback was a one off.

Fly Mowers, Five Guys & Random Ramblings

Jul 19 2019

I finally had enough of hauling my heavy lawn mower up and down banks, so I took the plunge and invested in a fly mow. It makes life so much easier; well mowing grass on gradients anyway. My only concern is accidentally cutting my toes off. It happens on occasion I am told.

Here is a picture of my dog Trigga posing on my pre fly-mowed lawn.

Who else is a fan of Five Guys? I paid the Guildford branch a visit earlier in the week, and I was not disappointed. If you haven’t already, I recommend paying Five Guys a visit. That advice does not apply to vegetarians or vegans.

I was so full from my Five Guys that I forgot I was meant to go the supermarket. Fortunately, some carb free leftovers came to the rescue.

I don’t seem to be receiving many comments other than endless spam on my blog nowadays. Perhaps there is a problem with one of the WordPress plugins. At any rate, I have rather fallen out of love with WordPress and am planning to migrate elsewhere. Relationships only last a finite amount of time – and this no exception.

The plan is to have a proper website. This will allow for a greater degree of flexibility, and it is going to be cheaper to run and far more secure too. I am of the opinion that WordPress has become rather dated. Perhaps you WordPress users feel the same. I am hoping the move will revitalise my blogging inspiration, and I will not have to resort to blogging about my fly mow.

Have a good weekend.

Category - Uncategorized

Reading, Ruminating & Household Appliances.

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Humorous Fiction and A New Toy

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5 Dark Humour Books You Might Like

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Lockdown Reading & Revelations

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5 Things To Do During Lockdown.

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6 Disturbing Reading Recommendations

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Storms, Sustenance & Soul-Searching

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A Stuttering NHS, Technical Glitches & A Prison Break

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The Week – the good, the bad & the ugly

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Fly Mowers, Five Guys & Random Ramblings

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