Get on with some work!

This week has been crazy. It's a good job I don't work for a living; I'd never have the time! There's a café-bar in my local art house cinema (the Broadway) which is like a vortex. Once you get in there, it's almost impossible to get out. I'd been there yesterday for a meeting with a woman to discuss an anthology we're putting together, and although I was meant to stay only one hour, I was there for three. There is always someone I know in the bar and even when I plan to stay for only a brief chat, before I can escape someone else comes in and picks up the thread, and buys another drink, and I buy one back…. and so on. I even received some emergency PC support in there, from a novelist friend of mine who managed to sort out my wireless connection after I'd cocked it up. How about that?

Later, I was talking to a TV scriptwriter and he said "It seems there's a force of gravity that pulls all writers to this place." I observed that whilst this appears to be true, there was little evidence of anyone doing any writing. "Ah," he mused, picking up his glass of beer, "it's all research."

However today I am actually down at the studio doing some real writing (except that I'm not, I'm doing this blog). For some reason, this area of town has no water today. I rang the water company to enquire why and was told: "We have a problem with our reservoir". This information didn't seem too encouraging. If it were a mains leak, or a system power outage, or something like that, I could be quite confident that we'd only have to wait a short while and it would be fixed. But, a 'problem with the reservoir'? What does that mean? Has the reservoir disappeared, perhaps? Has it dried up? Is it being held hostage by armed bandits demanding that its water should be re-directed to other parts of Britain (you know, parts that don't have enough water right now – like South Yorkshire and the Severn Valley)?

I've just had a telephone call from someone outside the city telling me that the centre of Nottingham is being evacuated because there is an emergency. As I write this, I'm sitting in the centre of Nottingham, and I haven't been evacuated. There appears to be no emergency outside this building, although it is true that there appears to be few people too. What kind of emergency can this be? No water? Oh yes, that must be it.

"This is the police. We have to instruct you that the inability to boil a kettle poses a great threat to your safety. This means that we must evacuate the city centre immediately. Do not panic. Leave quietly and do not run. Do not take any personal belongings with you. Anyone seen trying to buy a bottle of Evian from the all-night Spar shop will be shot."

So it isn't just MY week that has been crazy, after all. It's everyone's.