Shouts From Down Under

IF irony is unplanned = ironic or BACON? NO! or = un-ironed?

What is it with stuff, when you are lurching along in life, minding your own writing bidness, and then out of left paddock, you are hit in the head with a sneaky succulent smell of bear bait? Better known as bacon grease, apparently.

I know nada about bears. But BACON.

You write your own stuff usually. But you read a book. Magazine. Article. Comic even. You see someone doing something, eating something, watching something, angry at something, something with bacon, and other things.

Next thing you know, YOU are bacon. NO. Getting distracted here.
You are doing the same thing. You are feeling like doing that very thing. It must be subconscious infection or I don't know.

This has happened to me a few times lately in the last 10 years or so. Ok, maybe narrow that down to a few weeks might sound a bit more plausible.

Imagine this. (I apologise sincerely and in advance to vegetarians. Our daughter has chosen this lifestyle and so I now understand the sensitiveness and thought needed so that the person (victim) doesn't feel persecuted or left out of "gourmet taste bud conversations") Ah..Ahhhh...Ahhh BACON! Scuse me.

Imagine this, getting back to it.

There is a guy camping. He's doing it with almost no gear. No camping equipment. He has no coat or jumper on (sweater). Just a T shirt. He IS wearing pants thankfully. He is up in mountains that contain BEARS! (*Australian shudder*) He is alone, except for some other people seen in the brightly coloured jacketed distance. He is bush walking, looking for an old cabin in the woods, as you Americans call it; we call it "in the scrub" or "out in the bush" or "out in the Pilliga" if near my home town. It means you are fairly isolated.



The weather is bordering hostile with black clouds, distant thunder and finally, pouring rain, wind and lightning. The next day there's a flash flood but he's escaped luckily. Meanwhile back in the camp, he only has a transparent thin tarp stretched over a large black cold slippery inhospitable but comforting log.

So, the message is, its cold and hungry minimalistic camping. Then, after you've tossed and turned all night, even after 14 hours fitful sleep, and worrying about your food bag hung 3 trees away; the bear SHOULDN'T come in looking for food now. Or dessert- as he said- joking.

But it's all ok, all a winner, all good, because he wakes up and cooks up some eggs and BACON. Ohhhhhh mercy. That bubbling and crackling, that popping and sizzling, that amazing aroma. He eats it crispy, but that's all up to your personal preference.

I think I'd fight a bear for that bacon. Real Time. Not even joking much.

When we write, sometimes we can find this thing happening. It sort of comes like mud rubbing off onto white clothing. Only later do we look down at our trousers or whatever and realise that our writing has picked up a style or subject line or similar wording or idiosyncrasies or colloquialisms or voodoo pin pricks, just like what we'd looked at earlier.

This blog was going to be about writing, but I keep thinking of bacon. I asked my wife earlier if we had any bacon in the house.

"We've ALWAYS got bacon." was her distant (other room) call, with finality.

I don't want to argue. But just to prove it, I'll go have a look, and maybe just cook up a teensy bit. This'll be research, so lets see how it pans out.



Then there were burgers.



I had one the other day, first time for a long time. It happened accidentally, but I did enjoy it. Until the mistake was staring me in the face (from everybody). I ordered an egg and bacon toasted sandwich, and when it arrived I thought, wow, that's generous! There was EVERYTHING on that thing, plus a heap of chips (fries) on the plate. I'm thinking, man, good service here!
Wrong. Next thing the bartender (I was supporting a client at lunch in a pub) asked if it was ok to which I agreed, nodding enthusiastically. He comes through from the kitchen supporting another plate with MY SANDWICH on it, which he tried to offer to the other guy who'd ordered the burger. He wasn't having a bar of this skinny looking egg and bacon toasty. No way.

So out the sorry mistake came, loudly. The barman was quite ok, even when I offered to pay for my misidentification of my meal. Next time I won't be so bonce headed about food, but hey; I WAS distracted by the bacon.

What has this to do with writing is up to your own think tank and brainstorming session.

All I know is, whatever you write about can have slippage into stuff that has seeped into the back of your mind, from other sometimes unknown sauces .

Amazing isn't it, what people get up to. I've taken to watching videos and reading stuff on subjects that I know absolutely not much about, because you can learn and experience some of what they do, through their video.

That is why I decided to upload to my Youtube channel, such as it is, a short film about BACON, and eggs. It's edumacational, baconned up by eggstensive research and injected with lots of extremely pleasant smells. While it isn't possible in 2015 to get those knee weakening smells onto your computer and into your room and nose, your mind will fill in the blanks, believe me.



Sparky