You can't pay them, they're dead.

As some of you might or might not know, I work in a law firm and look after all the money that comes into and goes out of the office. You see some interesting things in this job. For example, today we had a client buy a property worth £1.4million (that’s what, $2.8milion), and they haven’t even sold their old house yet. Instead they’ve taken a whopping big bridging loan from the bank. But when they do sell their old place (which is now sitting empty), they’ll be mortgage free. Makes you sick, doesn’t it?

One of the things that always catches my eye is when we receive cheques or invoices from companies in relation to the estates of deceased clients. For example, I’ve seen many invoices in the name of Mr A N Other Deceased. I’ve actually seen red utility bills made out in this way. Red ones! The kind where they threaten to cut you off if you don’t pay. Somehow, I don’t think the dead person will mind all that much if they can’t watch Richard & Judy with the gas fire on full. Do you?

But this one got me. Today, we received a cheque payable to a deceased client. Not unusual, happens all the time. But this one was from the care home where she was living. It was a refund of her fees since she no longer required the room on account of being dead. You think they’d know she was dead and know not to make the cheque out to her, wouldn’t? I mean, she died there for Christ’s sake.

I despair, I really do.

To other matters, I’m working on a new Ladz “Local Lovelies” story. The first draft is about halfway done. This one features Carla, an Estate Agent from Birmingham, who appeared in Ladz because her friend Rebecca (star of the last Ladz story) told her it was a good way to get cock.

Carla describes herself as

“…a real life walking cliché—from my bleach blonde curls and big tits to the sexy undies I wear to work in case I get lucky with a client. And that’s without mentioning my insatiable need for cock.”

I’ll let you know how I’m getting on with it.

See ya,

I'm Coming Soon!

Charlotte’s Secret now appears on the ‘Coming Soon’ page on the Phaze website. Click here and have a look. It’s about just a little more than halfway down. The advertising blurb is there too.

I’ve also added the covers for both "Charlotte’s Secret" and "Lost & Found" to my header and home pages on my website. Clicking on them takes you to a ‘holding’ page, with a larger version of the cover and a short blurb. I’ll be updating these holding pages with the “official” blurbs when I get a chance.

The text for “Lost & Found” has been finalised. My editor sent it yesterday. I’m really pleased with the result and I’d like to take this opportunity to publicly thank Loukie for all the help she gave me over the past couple of months. I really do believe that she prodded and poked me in the right direction and ultimately got the best out of me.

Oh, and what do you think of these new banners? I do like that first one...

Time Flies

nother weekend is upon us and I can't quite believe it's the end of January already – this month seems to have gone really quickly. Of course, when you've got so much on, it's not really any wonder, but still…

Today Mrs Nobbs, Knobbie Jr and I have been to see three houses that we might be interested in buying. In my opinion, all three were very overpriced. The first one was… Do I have to be nice about other people's houses? It stank. I'm mean, as soon as the door opened I could smell it. It was that odd 'old person' smell. That was enough to put me off. That and the fact that it needed a new kitchen and total redecoration. I reckon it was around £50,000 over priced.

The second house had a better smell, but wasn't any better value. An odd mish-mash of a house, it did have a very good garden with a fifty year old apple tree cropping really well each summer. But it wasn't for us. Not unless we could get it for thirty for forty thousand less than the asking price.

The third house was very nice, and owned by a very pleasant couple. But at nearly £230,000 it was just too small for the money.

Which brings us back to the first house we viewed in this quest for a new home. Large house, needs work, but a bargain price because of it. We'd make an offer on it now, but because it's owned by a house builder (who took it in part-exchange for a new build house) they won't listen to us until we have a buyer for our house. So if anyone's interested in buying a nice two up two down…

I've spent my spare moments this week not writing new stuff but reviewing stuff I've already written. I've been doing a final read through and minor edit of "Lost & Found", which is due to be released by Phaze on June 16^th. I'm very proud of this story. Originally published by Ruthie's Club last year, I've added something in the order of six thousand words to it. Six thousand words that really lift the story to another level. So even if you read it at Ruthie's, it'd be worth getting the new version from Phaze just to read the new bits. I promise you won't be disappointed.

Can I do it in Word 2007?

This is just a test post, so ignore it. I'm testing the office 2007 trial, and apparently I can use word 2007 to post blog entries directly. Don't know if it'll work, so I'm testing it.

So ignore this post.

 

Why are you still reading? I told you to ignore this post.

Monday Mornng and All's well

The weather is horrible, it’s windy and rainy and cold and muggy and dark. But I feel quite chipper at the moment. Life feel all right. I’m excited about the upcoming release of “Charlotte’s Secret” and “Lost & Found” with Phaze. I’ve got cracking a bit more with “Chloe’s Education” and the house hunt is going quite well.

We looked at five or six houses now and even though we saw two very nice, very well looked after houses at the weekend, Mrs Nobbs and I still keep coming back to the first house we saw. It’s not in the best condition and needs a lot of work – new kitchen, new boiler, new flooring (cause the carpets make me ill when I look at them) and total redecoration – but it’s got loads of space and I can see us living there quite happily. It’s also a steal of a price. If we could get it for a few thousand less than the asking price, we could easily spend 20-30k making it into the home we want it to be, and still have spent less than some of the houses we have seen that “ready to move in to”. It’s the sort of house that need lavish attention – lots of love and care – and it’ll be fab. Trouble is, it’s a part-exchange property that is currently in the hands of a national house builder, and they are unlikely to listen to our offer for it until we have a buyer lined up for our current home. I just hope someone else doesn’t beat us to it. I think it’ll take another couple with vision to want to take it on – I just hope they are few and far between.

I also found time to update marcnobbs.com at the weekend. You’ll now see thumbnails of the covers for my two books on the ‘welcome’ screen and bigger versions on the home page. I’ve also updated a few other minor things. I’m planning to add extracts from some more of my older stories soon.

I’m going to finish today with a of joke that was e-mailed to me at the tail end of last week. Enjoy.

A man was in a long queue at his local Tesco store. As he got to the register he realized he had forgotten to get condoms, so he asked the checkout girl if she could have some brought up to the register.

She asked, 'What size condoms?' The customer replied that he didn't know.

She asked him to drop his trousers. He did.

She reached over the counter, grabbed hold of him and called over the intercom, 'One box of large condoms,Till 5.'

The next man in the queue thought this was interesting, and like most of us, was up for a cheap thrill. When he got up to the register, he told the checker that he too had forgotten to get condoms, and asked if she could have some brought to the register for him.

She asked him what size, and he stated that he didn't know. She asked him to drop his trousers. He did.

She gave him a quick feel, picked up the intercom and said, 'One box of medium-sized condoms, Till 5.'

A few customers back was this teenage boy. He though what he had seen was way too cool. He had never had any type of sexual contact with a live female, so he thought this was his chance.

When he got to the till he told the checker he neede some condoms.

She asked him what size and he said he didn't know.She asked him to drop his trousers and he did.

She reached over the counter, gave him a quick squeeze then picked up the intercom and said...

'Mop and bucket, Till 5'

My House isn't Energy Efficient – But why should I care?

I've worked in a solicitor's office for over six years now and during that time I've been very involved with the money side of conveyancing. I receive the money into our bank account when people sell and then use it to pay off their mortgages, put towards their new house and transfer the balance to them. Similarly, when someone buys a house, it's my job to collect together the deposit, mortgage and any other funds that are needed and then send them off to the current owner of the property (well, his solicitor actually).

However, it's been over 8 years since Mrs Nobbs and I purchased our current house – and even then we weren't all that stressed by it or involved in the finer details of house hunting, because we bought the house we were renting from out landlord. It was all very smooth.

But we've decided we've out grown this two-up two-down semi, and we've put it on the market. I'll be honest with you, the valuation's we've had for the property, which is in a very nice area, shocked me—it's so much money. It's going on at an asking price of £164950, which is close to $330000. If anyone's interested, e-mail me and I'll give you details of the agents so you can arrange a viewing. ;-)

Seriously, lets ignore my pathetic attempt to tempt one of you to buy – the business of selling houses in the UK has changed over the last year thanks to the introduction of the HIP. The Home Information Pack. And what a waste of time they are.

When the HIP was first put forward, it seemed like a good idea. Pass the burden of the transaction on to the seller from the buyer by getting the seller to commission a survey and put in hand searches. This way the buyer knows exactly what they are making an offer for before they spend any money – a great help for first time buyers in particular. Trouble is, the HIP has been watered down. The Survey (or Home Condition Report) is no longer a requirement and the searches are so useless that most good lawyers will advise the buyer to have their own done. In fact, some banks won't even accept the HIP searches and insist on new ones commissioned by the buyer. So what use is the HIP? Well, environmental groups think it's a good idea, so that all right then. You see, now it's all about the EPC. The Energy Performance Certificate.

The EPC tells the buyer how energy efficient the property is and how much planet killing carbon dioxide it gives out. (I refuse to refer to 'carbon emissions' – that makes it sound like my house is pumping out diamond dust or clouds of graphite. It's carbon dioxide - if the media is going to blind us with pseudo-science, they could at least refer to things correctly.)

Anyway – yesterday, my house was inspected and received it's EPC – a rather colourful document which politely told me that my house is rubbish, and no matter how many low-energy bulbs I buy, it'll still be rubbish and really I should knock it down and build a wooden hut. (except that a wooden hut might catch fire and pump out lots of carbon dioxide...)

Low energy bulbs – here's a stupid thing. If I change all the nasty tungsten bulbs for low-energy bulbs (which contain mercury and a highly poisonous if broken, but we'll ignore that, shall we?), then the house's energy rating will improve. But what's stopping me from taking all my new and expensive bulbs with me when I move house? My 'AA' rated washing machine doesn't count towards the energy rating cause I'll take it with me – so why should the bulbs? I digress.

My question is, will this 'certificate', which does look very nice with lots of pretty colours and graphs, stop anyone from buying my house? Will anybody love my house, think about putting in an offer and then change their minds because it's only an “E” rated property? Will anybody even bother to look at the damn thing which has cost me one hundred of my hard earned pounds? Apparently, less than one in twenty buyers are asking to see the HIP. In some places, it's less than one in a hundred.

It seems that the government has once again dropped the ball – and the sooner they drop these stupid HIPs, the better.

A few funnies

These came to me by e-mail earlier today. Thought I'd share. Enjoy.

What's the ideal weight for a mother-in-law?

About 2.3 pounds including the urn.

*****

A man is in a queue at Tescos and sees this busty blonde staring at him, he can't believe she is staring at him. Then she starts waving.

"Excuse me do I know you?" he asks.

"Yes I think you are the father of one of my kids" she says.

The man thinks back and remembers his one act of infidelity and says "F**king hell are you the bird I shagged on my stag do, whilst your mate whipped me and your other mate stuck a brush up my ass?"

"No" she replies "I'm your son's English teacher!"

*****

A bride on her wedding night says to her husband "I must confess darling, I was a hooker!".
He says "That's all right, dear. Your past is your past, but I must admit that I find it quite erotic.. Tell me about it".
She replies "Well, my name was Nigel, and I played for Wigan !".

****

Father Duffy walks into the convent and sees sister rose washing the kitchen floor.. He's overcome with desire and pushes her onto the ground. As he's shagging her the Rev Mother comes in.

"SISTER ROSE!!!" she roars "Have some respect. Arch your back girl and keep Father Duffy's balls off the wet floor!!"

****

A man says to his wife "tell me something that will make me happy and sad at the same time".

His wife replies "You've got a bigger cock than your brother"

Lost & Found Cover

In addition to receiving publication dates for my two Phaze releases, I now have the cover for Lost & Found too. And as you can see– it’s stunning. Or at least I think it is.

I’m getting very excited about these two releases and I’m interested to see how many copies I’ll sell. I’m also interested in what, if anything, the reviewers will have to say.

I’ve thrown myself back into Chloe’s Education. I’ve known where this story is going for a long time, but I’ve been kind of bogged down with the actual writing of it. But these two Phaze titles nearing release has fired me up again.

I’ve got to do my responses to the story I posted at The Fishtank last week, Extended Family. I posted it because I didn’t know if I need to carry on and make this a longer story, or leave it as it is. A longer story is forming in my head, but I have to work out the fine details. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do though. Maybe making my responses will help me make up my mind.

On a more personal note – my wife and I have finally decided our house, where we’ve been for nearly 8 years, is too small with a two-year-old running about and is definitely too small if we want to make the family any bigger. So we’ve had the house valued, commissioned the HIP and we’ll be deciding on a marketing agent this week. We’ve also been to look at some other houses. The two we’ve seen so far have both been ‘not for us’. Nice houses, but just not for us. We’re seeing another one tonight and tomorrow night – both of which I think could be right for us. But we thought that about the other two until we actually went inside them. We’ll have to wait and see.

See ya

Release Date News

That’s right, I’ve now got tentative dates for my two Phaze releases. “Charlotte’s Secret” is due to be revealed to the world on 21st April 2008 while Beth Burnett and Chris Austins will get “Lost & Found” on 16th June 2008.

“Charlotte’s Secret” is done and dusted – the cover art is done, the editing is complete and I can sit back and wait for April. “Lost & Found” is another matter. I sent a third draft of the story to my editor, Loukie Aldem, just last night. This latest version is getting on for 27000 words long – that’s over 6000 words longer than when it was originally submitted. And I’ve got to tell you, I really love the extra stuff I’ve added – I think it strengthens the story no end. I think there might be even more work to do on it before June though.

What I need to do now is crack on and Finish “Chloe’s Education”. I’ll keep you informed as to my progress.

Coming Soon...

Charlotte’s Secret is due to be released by Phaze “mid to late April”. Which means I better start doing some promotion work for it I suppose. To that end, I’ve set up a yahoo groups mailing list – hell, everyone else seems to have one. You can sign up using the button below. I’m sure how I’m going to be using it yet. Certainly I’ll copy my blog entries to it, but I’ll probably throw other stuff at it too.

I’ve made some minor updates to my website too, although looking at it today I can see I’ve missed one thing, which is annoying – I’ll have to put it right tonight.

For the readers of this Blog on MySpace, advance warning – the powers that be at work are talking seriously about a new service offered by our ISP that filters out MySpace and other social network sites from our network. This would mean I could no longer blog from work. So I’ve ‘rebooted’ my blogger blog with a view to moving to there full time if this filtering ever does go ahead. I’ll be sorry to leave MySpace (if I have to) but it can’t be helped.

The Joy of the Fishtank

For those of you who don’t know, Desdmona’s Fishtank is an online workshop for authors of erotic works. The principal is simple, you read and comment on five stories by other people, and then you are permitted to submit a story of your own to be read and commented on by other people.

I’ve been a member since the middle of 2004 and have found it an invaluable tool. I make no bones about it – if it wasn’t for the fishtank, I wouldn’t be selling my work now. I wouldn’t have an appreciation of some of the finer points of writing and I’d probably still be giving my stories away, cause I doubt anyone would want to buy them.

As it is, I’ve learnt a hell of a lot and made some very good friends amongst the people there. The fishtank is where I first encountered Cassie Exline, Mat Twassel, HL Berry, Jenny Mount, Shanna Germain… The list goes on.

But there are times that I love and hate the fishtank in equal measure. Like now for instance. Allow me to elaborate.

This past weekend, I posted a story to the fishtank for review and asked the other fishies one question – Does this piece stand alone. The piece in question is currently titled “Extended Family” and is 4500-ish words long. I won’t go into details, but at the moment, the story ends at a point which could be considered an ‘open’ ending – leave the reader hanging. I do feel it is an ending, but I’m not sure if I want to leave the characters there or if I should tell the rest of their story. Trouble is, I’m not certain what the rest of their story actually is, so I’m not that keen on groping the dark (so to speak – actually, groping in the dark can be fun with the right person) until I get a handle on where the story is headed.

So, I thought, I’ll ask the fishies. I phrase the question thus : Does this story stand on it’s own as it is, or do I need to carry it on. Not should I carry it on, but do I need to.

Obviously I was hoping they’d all tell me that I could leave it alone now and be done with it.

And that’s exactly what one reviewer who I have great respect for said. Quite emphatically.

However, another reviewer who I have equal respect for, has said the exact opposite – equally emphatically.

So there you have it – the reason I love and hate the fishtank in equal measure. I now know the story is a good one – but I’m no closer to making a decision about carrying it on or leaving it alone.

Oh, such is life. See ya.

Blog Reboot

It's been a while since my last blog post here on blogger. I've been posting exclusively on MySpace for ages. But, today sees a 'reboot' of my blogspot. I blog mostly from work, and there is talk of filtering MySpace out in the next few months. So, just in case, I'm starting posting the blog entries here again as well as at myspace.
Over the next few weeks, as I fiddle with the code to get this place looking how I want it, I'll make this my primary blog.
You'll see that I've posted today's blog entry here as a starting point.