Oompah Loompah Doopity Doo

“What’s behind this door?” asked Veruca Salt, pointing to an anonymous-looking door in the corridor. It was so anonymous, in fact, that the others had walked past it, unaware of its existence.

“Oh that door?” replied Willy Wonka, “There’s nothing behind there. Nothing worth seeing anyway.”

“Well I want to see.” declared Veruca adamantly.

“Honestly my dear, there’s really nothing of any note in there,” he replied, adopting his most gracious and sincere smile.

“Come on Wonka,” said Mr. Salt, sensing an oncoming tantrum from his little princess, “our ticket said ‘a full tour of the factory’. It’s not a full tour if you don’t take us into every room.”

“My dear sir,” said Wonka, straightening up and adopting a clipped tone, “if I were to take you into every room in the factory, we would be walking these corridors until well into next year.”

Mrs. Teavee gave him a playful shove, “C’mon Mr. Wonka. Spill the beans! What’s behind the door?”

“Yeah,” added Mike, “it must be something really cool if you’ve gotta keep it such a secret.”

Wonka winced. He hated the word “cool”. “Fine,” he said, “You want to know what’s in there, be my guests. But don’t get your hopes up,” adding under his breath, “it’s not all chocolate rivers and edible furniture.”

Sweeping the door open with one arm, he beckoned them to enter. Inside, the room was small and windowless. Each wall was plastered with a sea of multi-coloured sticky notes, some of which had fallen off and formed paper puddles on the floor. In the centre of the room was a large, wooden desk covered almost entirely in untidy piles of paper. Behind the desk sat an Oompah-Loompah staring intently at a computer screen. He looked different from the rest; he lacked the energy and joie de vivre of the others and his skin was pallid from spending too much time out of the sun. A pair of half-moon glasses sat perched on the end of his nose and, if you looked carefully, there were flecks of grey around the edges of his red hair.

“Hey!” shouted Veruca in his direction, pushing to the front of the huddle in the doorway. He looked up slowly, peering at her over the top of his glasses. “Who are you?” she demanded,  ”And what’s this room for?”

He didn’t reply immediately, taking his time to look over the group one by one. Drawing a long, considered breath, as if about to impart bad news, he replied, “I’m the project manager.”

There was silence in the room. The 3 remaining children looked at him blankly. Mike Teavee was the first to break the awkward silence, scrunching up his nose in confusion and asking, “The what?”

The Oompah-Loompah gave a weary sigh. “The project manager,” he repeated.

“Wh…what does that mean?” asked Grampa Joe.

“I make sure that, when we make a new batch of chocolate, we make it right and we make it on budget. It’s my responsibility to see that we work as efficiently as possible and don’t get distracted by…things.”

“What kind of things?” asked Mr. Salt.

He raised a single eyebrow and look straight at him. “Dancing, for example.” The more perceptive adults in the room picked up on the twinge of bitter sarcasm in his voice.

“And how’s that all working out for you?” asked Mrs. Teavee.

“Not good,” sighed the Oompah-Loompah, looking back down at his screen, “Not good.” There was an awkward pause.

“Do you…er…have a song?” asked Charlie, trying to be helpful.

“No, not really.”

The conversation having ground to a halt, the group turned around silently and filed through the doorway. Willy Wonka closed it behind them. “Keep up the good work!” he shouted cheerily as the door clicked into place.

“Screw you, you top-hatted weirdo,” muttered the Oompah-Loompah under his breath, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and going back to his 17th consecutive game of Solitaire.

SuperHipster

Rufus was a Media Studies student, indistinguishable from the rest of the Oxford Road crowd. By night he stalked the streets of the Northern Quarter, resplendent in his finest vintage elbow-patched jacket, his Edwardian moustache waxed to a fine point. He was SuperHipster: the enemy of conformity, fighting for the freedom to be different; nemesis of The Man.

Senses alert to the proximity of anything mainstream, he was always ready to disarm an opponent with his oft-heard cry of “I don’t like that thing that you like.”

Arguing With Myself

“Ideas. ‘S’all about ideas innit?”

It’s 1am and I’m talking to the voice inside my head. This isn’t, I should say, some demonic voice telling me to set fire to things, it’s the voice of my subconscious; the root of my creativity. My subconscious has had a personality for as long as I can remember. For reasons which I’m not entirely clear on, over the years, it’s evolved into that of a middle-aged London cab driver.

“Yes, it is about ideas,” I sigh. We’re covering old ground here. “But it’s not just about ideas, it’s about structure; it’s about…timing.” I hit that last “timing” with particular emphasis. This is the root of our argument; it’s the root of most of our arguments.

“Timing? Don’t tell me I’ve got no timing. You’ve done alright off my sense of timing in the past, pal.”

“I know, I know. You’re very… quick-witted.”

“Too right I am!” he cuts across me, petulantly, “You set ‘em up, I knock ‘em down. You know I…we can be sharp when we want to be.”

“Yes, but my point is that it’s 1am and, while I agree that sometimes you’ve got to grab an idea when it comes to you, my point is that you don’t have any ideas! You’re not actually giving me anything to work with. You’re just sitting there idly tapping away at that typewriter, or laptop, or whatever it is that you use in there, but you’re not actually producing anything.”

“Well I’m bored! I want to do stuff!” He’s whining now. This isn’t a good sign.

“I know you want to do stuff. So do I. All I’m saying is that I can’t lie here awake night after night listening to you being impatient but not delivering the goods. I do have a job  you know.”

“Yeah, a shit job,” he whispers as an aside, making sure it’s loud enough for me to hear, (as if there was a way for me not to hear).

“Fuck off alright! I’m sorry I’m not knocking out novels or struggling to get a sitcom commissioned, or whatever it is that you’d rather I do with my time. I wasn’t the one that pissed off 15 years ago for an extended holiday.”

“You were busy! You had other things to do – booze… birds… Not my fault if you couldn’t be bothered to stretch your creative muscles.” I can’t see, but I can tell he did air quotes around that last bit.

“Oh come on, you know you missed out on years of opportunity for us to do something worthwhile.”

“Well,” he sniffs, “like I say, you were busy. Maybe I felt a bit left out.”

“Fine. I’m very sorry.”

“Well so you bloody should be! You’re the one who suddenly decided you wanted to be all creative again. Wandering around with your fancy notebook like you’re Lord-bleedin’-Byron, waiting for inspiration to come and smack you in the face. Don’t you worry about inspiration, pal. You just stick with me and you’ll be fine.”

“Alright, alright,” I concede, “but it’s still 1am and you’re not actually giving me anything worth staying awake for, so do you think you could keep the noise down until do come up with that stroke of genius?”

“Hmmph,” he snorts, “fine. Whatever. But don’t blame me if you’re asleep and I come up with something great.”

“I’m sure you’ll remember it in the morning,” I reply, laying on the sarcasm.

“Well maybe I’ll wake you up and you can write it in your little notebook.” Touché.

“Right, well I’m going to sleep.”

“Sweet dreams!”

“Shut up.”

“Prick,” he mutters under his breath.

100 Words (Vince & Kev)

I must pass this poster 7 or 8 times on my walk to work and it’s occurred to me that there’s absolutely nothing, other than the presence of Vince Vaughn and Kevin James, to entice you into watching this. Neither the title nor the poster present any idea of plot, target audience or genre. Neither of these two are what you’d call “A-list” celebrity draws. Is this the level of ennui in the American film industry, and are we expected to fork out £10 a ticket for a film solely on the basis that it might be funny?

100 Words (Into The Lens)

Undiscovered photo group at Madlab, 13/01/11

“You work at your most creative when you work outside your comfort zone.”

“If you usually take photos of buildings, start looking at the people at street level. You’ll begin to see that they move in recognisable patterns.”

“Limit the number of shots you take per session. You’ll only have to go home and wade through 300 images, and it’ll make you think more about the shots that you do take.”

“Always keep a spare battery in a pocket close to your body. It’s easy to grab and your body heat will help retain the charge.”

Written as part of the 100words.com project.

100 Words (Through The Cubicle Wall)

“Hi babe.”

Babe? Eugh. Also, phone call in the toilet? Classy guy.

“Sorry I had to leave this morning, but you know how it is. Yeah, yeah I had a fun time too.”

The morning-after scarper. Definitely a classy guy.

“Eh? No, no course it’s not. No… it’s not a toilet.”

?

“I’m in a stationery cupboard.”

!

“Just a… er… a big stationery cupboard-type thing.”

Yeah, a big stationery cupboard-type thing with a toilet in it.

“Why would I ring you from a toilet?! Yeah. I know. Crazy. Want to get together next week sometime?“

*flush*
*exit*
Busted

100 Words (Sex and Chocolate)

It doesn’t happen often, certainly not when you’re expecting it. The anticipation dulls the senses and distracts the imagination. As your hand empties its contents into your mouth and you bite down, you savour the unique taste that’s released when the crisp, sugar shell explodes between your teeth. A citrus tang cuts across the creamy chocolate as it liquifies across your tongue, sending sparks across your synapses and a powerful rush of blood to the head. The flavour reaches its peak and fades to something more familiar; a memory from your childhood. That’s truly the sensation of the little death.

Written as part of the 100words.com project.

100 Words (Chuggers)

Don’t do that; don’t stop me in the street. Don’t jump into my line of sight with that rictus grin on your face, like we’re old friends that haven’t seen each other in months. I can spot you a mile off. It’s the t-shirt that gives you away; the t-shirt, the laminated ID badge and the fact that you’re walking backwards. I don’t care what the cause is; I don’t even care if you personally think it’s worthy. I wouldn’t give you my bank details any more than I’d buy a mobile phone off you. Everything about you screams ‘insincere’.

Written as part of the 100words.com project.

100 Words (Science Romance)

When the handsome man in the lab coat had sidled up to her at a conference and bought her a drink, Sally was pleasantly surprised. When, after a few more drinks, their conversation turned from ‘flirty’ to ‘suggestive’, she told herself that these things don’t happen to ordinary people. When, at the end of the night, he invited her back to his place to “make the beast with two backs”, she thought her luck was in.

What Sally didn’t know was the he was a warped geneticist, and that she was in for a night that she would never forget.

Written as part of the 100words.com project.

100 Words (Sunday Blues)

Beginning in the early evening, Sunday creeps up on you, enveloping you with a sense of dread, like the ceiling in a cheap horror movie bearing down on the occupants of the room. And, like a playground bully, Sunday doesn’t care about positives. It has no interest in the good things that have been or those that have yet to happen. It taunts you with them, holding them up in front of you and saying “Ah yes, but you can’t do those until you’ve lived through Monday.” Sunday is a cruel and petty tormentor; a burster of bubbles; a bastard.

Written as part of the 100words.com project.