BarryHutchison.com

No reason for the post, other than the fact I loved the headline.

Cash-in-buttocks man in M25 ban

I really just logged on here today to delete all the usual spam comments about Britney Spears’ … um … lady’s area, but then I noticed that my post last night was the forty-ninth one to appear on the site. For the mathematically challenged, that would make this post number fifty. A milestone in anyone’s book, and cause for some kind of celebration.

But what? A cake? I could bake (well, buy) a cake and scoff the lot, but as celebrations go, that one feels a little on the selfish side. I suppose if everyone sent me their address I could send them a very small slice, but it seems to be taking over a week for any mail to get here from the UK, so the cake might not be the freshest by the time it arrives.

So what, then? How can I possibly thank the three, maybe even four people who read the blog on a vaguely regular basis? By shutting down the site and promising never to write another word for the remainder of my natural life? Possibly, but I’ve got contracts to fulfill and deadlines to meet, so that would only come back and bite me on the backside.

Hmm. I’ll have a think about it while I write the remainder of this self-congratulatory blog entry.

Fifty posts, eh? It’s not a huge amount – particularly as at least one of them was about commas – but it’s not a pathetic number either. It’s not, like, five posts, say. That’d be rubbish. If I was patting myself on the back for managing five posts you’d have my full permission to kick me square in my lady’s area.

Whoops! I mean man’s area. Hahahaha. Typo, that’s all. Just a typo.

So, fifty. It’s half way to a hundred posts, so that’s quite good. I already have my celebration planned for when I reach the hundred mark. Live on webcam I intend to cocoon myself in a sticky black ichor, where I shall remain for three weeks. At the end of that period I shall emerge as a beautiful, giant butterfly with a book for a face.

I shall then flutter from town to town, presenting my book face for the townsfolk to read. As they gaze at my quivering pages, a tremendous sense of calm and tranquility shall wash over them, and there will be no more hatred left in their hearts.

In a century or more, when my work is finally done and the world is at last a place of peace and joy, I shall write of my life in a series of picture books aimed at the under fives. They shall be known as ‘The Adventures of Book Faced Barry, the Butterfly of Love’ and their message will spread throughout the cosmos, touching the lives of alien beings we’ve never even dreamed of.

Alternatively, I’ll put some stuff up for you to download, like I’ve decided to do to mark the fiftieth post. Yeah, in fact, I’ll definitely do that for post one hundred. It’s not that I have a problem with being a book faced butterfly of love, but I’d get claustrophobic in the cocoon for that amount of time, so – alas – I’ll have to give it a miss. Mankind will just have to muddle through on its own.

Anyway, here are some random downloads from my hard drive you might fancy taking a look at. Or you might not. Entirely your call. I mean, it’s not like I’ve sweat blood and tears over them or that …

1. Gangrene – Page One
Page one of GANGRENE #1 has been all inked up and is looking fab. It’ll be coloured in the finished product, but here it is in glorious monochrome. The lettering was stuck on quite quickly by me, but a proper letterer who actually knows what he’s doing is going to be lettering the final comic. The pencils here are done by the ever-excellent Neil Chenier, with inks by Jeremy Freeman.

2. Gangrene – Draft One
And to go with the first page, here’s the full script for issue one in Adobe PDF format. Be warned, it contains the odd wee sweary word, a heap of violence, and a woman in a hideous tracksuit. It’s all just words, though, so when you get to the bit with the hideous tracksuit, you can always imagine it’s described as a lovely tracksuit instead.

3. Our Man in Pathology
My first ever attempt at a comedy sketch. It’s not great, so try not to laugh. Actually, no, forget that. Do laugh. That’s the point.

That’s it for now. Hope you enjoy!

Nine families with same name make for postal chaos

This is the kind of story I love reading. It could only happen in Ireland. Also, the guy in the photo looks just like Father Jack from Father Ted.

Make sure you read all the way to the bottom of the article – it just gets better and better the whole way down. The last quote from the Irish postal service – An Post – cracked me up

Several years ago – mid to late 90s – I was a student in Aberdeen on an utterly pointless film and media course which has served me no benefit to date, and which probably never will.

Anyway, while there I met and became friends with a great bunch of people, ultimately sharing a flat with one of them for a year. My flatmate – Greig – introduced me to another great bunch of people, who he was in a band with.

We all hung about at our flat, drinking Irn Bru, eating chicken pies from the corner shop, and generally having a fab old time to ourselves into the early hours of most mornings. It was one of those situations only students and the long term unemployed can really find themselves in – an endless parade of late night … not parties, but relaxed, social gatherings where you laughed until your chest felt fit for bursting.

Over the decade since then, life has gotten in the way. I moved away from Aberdeen, kept in contact for a few years, and then gradually lost touch with most of the guys I knew up there.

Last week I was shocked to see a photo of Stuart Campbell – one of the guys from back then – on the BBC news website. I clicked the photo and was horrified to discover he had gone missing.

It was vaguely surreal. There was Campbell’s photo. There was a quote from another friend, Stuart Leon, appealing for him to get in touch. When my broadband connection started working properly, I was able to watch Leon’s video appeal, when – his voice choked with emotion – he spoke of the poster campaign he and some of Campbell’s many, many other friends had been working on.

Sadly, it was to no avail. Stuart Campbell’s body was found in bushes by the side of an Aberdeen road last Friday. I’d heard a body had been found, but had hoped it would turn out to be some other unfortunate soul. It wasn’t.

I’m not going to comment on any of the events leading up to Campbell’s death. All I will say is that he was one of the nicest, most caring guys I ever met. He was also funny, played a mean cover of 99 Red Balloons, and was even willing to play a cross-dressing, teleporting supervillain in BUDD POWER, SPACE ADVENTURER – a short video we all made in the flat. Not many people I’ve met since would be prepared to undertake such a role.

Above all this, though, he was a good friend – not just to me, but to all of the 100+ people who turned out to lend their support to the poster campaign. For all these reasons and many, many more, he will be missed.

From the BBC: Body identified as missing father

I’ve spent the last week and a bit rewriting one of my own projects, following some feedback from a publisher. It’s done now, and it’s definitely a lot stronger as a result. Now Kathryn will send it back to the publisher and see if they like it. Fingers crossed.

Tonight I also rattled through a rewrite of one of my top secret Egmont projects. That one didn’t take nearly as long, and should already be nestling in an Egmont email inbox somewhere, just waiting to be picked up in the morning.

Tomorrow, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I’m taking a day off. Not a bit of the day. Not half of the day. THE WHOLE DAY.

I’ve got two 7-9 year old books to write in somewhere under a month, but I don’t care. Tomorrow is my day off, so all of you just accept it and move on. I’m not even going to check email.

Well, maybe I’ll have a quick look, just in case there’s anything urgent …

Recently, I wrote a post claiming BT were utterly and wholly incompetent, because they were unable to provide me with a phone line here in Wexford.

It seems I owe them an apology. Eircom did, indeed, reject my order, due to some ineptitude on their behalf. Once they’d sorted their act out, BT swung into action and placed the order again. In less than four hours the phone line was live, at which point I could place my broadband order. By the following morning, it was all up and running. 24 hours later, my new wireless router arrived. A startlingly impressive service all round, I have to say.

Getting proper broadband has come as a real relief. The O2 modem thing I got was terrible. Not only did it often download at speeds slower than a 28.8k modem, but as it has no firewall of any kind, it generously let my PC be flooded by viruses. I’ve spent the last two days trying to clear them out, but the blighters still keep hanging on in there. Curses!

Anyway, sorry BT. You’re the best!

Or, at least, you’re the best of the two Irish phone suppliers I have any direct experience with. Still, it’s something.

Still no phone line.

So, this exciting news I promised yesterday, then. Well, basically, the comic I came up with – Gangrene – has been picked up by the good folks at Arcana Comics. The four issue mini-series will be published first in comic, then in graphic novel format, and will be written by me, with artwork by my massively talented co-creator, Neil Chenier.

Between writing a 5-7 yrs novel for Egmont, and rewriting one of my own projects, I managed to get the full 22 page script for issue one done, and I’m very happy with it. It features gratuitous violence, dramatic entrances, a morally dubious hero, and a mutant dog – everything a good comic book should have.

In even more exciting news, next week I start on another two books in the top secret series I’ve been writing for Egmont. The first one, which I wrote a couple of months back, is released in January, with the next two I’m doing due to come out some time in May.

Which reminds me, both BEASTLY!: SPIDER SWAT and WOW! 366 came out at the start of the month, so feel free to buy them using the links on the right, if you haven’t done already. There are some fantastic stories in WOW! 366, and all proceeds go to Childline, so it’s worth picking up for all sorts of reasons. Gordon Brown’s isn’t really a story, so much as a bitterly uninteresting anecdote, but most of the others are well worth a read. Even Tom from McFly’s, despite all expectations to the contrary.

Anyway, it’s been raining like a long weekend at Noah’s for the past few days, but this afternoon – following a particularly nasty downpour – the sun came out and we all played football in the garden for a bit. Tomorrow, we’re off to a barbecue with live music in aid of my son’s new school. Fortunately it’s covered, so even if it rains I’ll be able to stuff my face on half-cooked chicken legs, before coming home and trying to get another 4,000 words done of my latest rewrite.

Apologies for the long gap between posts, but I am still without anything resembling a proper internet connection.

The previous occupier of the new house in Wexford had his phone line supplied by Eircom, the Big Daddy of Irish phone companies. They manage the entire telephone network, much like British Telecom does back in Ol’ Blighty.

Despite never having been a big supporter of their service, or their cack-handed customer support, we’ve decided to have our phone line provided by BT’s Irish division, which they’ve imaginatively dubbed ‘BT Ireland’.

In theory, it’s simple. BT tell Eircom they’re taking over the line, Eircom say ‘right you are then’ and the job’s done. That’s what the BT Ireland website says. That’s what the BT Sales Department says.

That’s not, in fact, what happens. What happens is more along the lines of…

ME: I’d like to order a line please.
BT: OKAY! It’ll be up and running in three days!
ME: Great!

BT: Hello, Eircom? We’d like to take over Barry’s line please.
EIRCOM: Ah. Would you now?
BT: Yes please!
EIRCOM: Well you’re out of luck. It’ll take us five days to cancel the existing line. Five working days, mind. Call us back then.
BT: But, don’t you just click a button to–?
EIRCOM: FIVE WORKING DAYS!!

ME: Hello, BT? It’s been three days and I’ve got no phone line.
BT: Oh yes, we meant to call you about that, but we forgot. You’ll need to wait another two days for the line to be cancelled before we can start.
ME: But, it’s already cancelled. There’s no dial tone.
BT: Yes, but it’s not PROPERLY cancelled. It’s just a bit cancelled. So when we said three days, what we should have said was eight days. Or twelve, if you count the fact there’s two weekends in the way.
ME: Oh. But–
BT: Byeeeee!

ME: Hello? BT? It’s been twelve days.
BT: Ah, yes. Sorry, we forgot to call you again, but, you know, the Olympics is on an’ that. Eircom have said no.
ME: What? What do you mean?
BT: They’ve said the exchange is full.
ME: So … what does that mean?
BT: I have no idea. Maybe they’ll have to build a new exchange or something.
ME: How long will that take?
BT: How long will what take?
ME: Building a new exchange.
BT: Pfffffff. Dunno. Byeeee!

ME: Hello? Eircom? Why have you rejected my order?
EIRCOM: We haven’t rejected your order. We said ‘okay then’.
ME: BT told me the exchange was full.
EIRCOM: BT are filthy rotten LIARS, who must be destroyed!!
ME: I agree.

ME: BT? Eircom didn’t say no at all.
BT: Sorry, we’re all out, probably killing handicapped children or something for a laugh. Try again later.

So that’s more or less what’s happened so far. I went out today and took out a 12 month contract on an O2 mobile broadband package, but it’s agonisingly slow, so that’ll be going back to the shop sharpish. I’m on a 28k modem dial-up speed at the minute, and am rapidly losing the will to live.

Anyway, got some exciting news to share, but not going to do it tonight. I’ll fill you in tomorrow. It’s worth the wait, though, trust me.