Fixtures and words

Happen you might not know, if you've been on the Moon or at the bottom of the ocean: there's a big footballing tournament currently underway. I, personally, have been so busy managing match-watching, playing pundit from the comfort of my own couch and "populating" my World Cup Wallchart with scores, that I haven't had time to spit. Unlike quite a few of the rather more ungentlemanly players. And while so far both my first team (England) and my second team (France) have been less than dream-makers, where would football be without disappointment, dashed hopes and, ultimately, heartbreak?

The ups and downs of the beautiful game are well documented, but a few folk round and about are adding some literary sparkle to proceedings via their blogs.

Dan "Winter Hill" Carpenter and his merry band of creative writers Bad Language "have decided to name [them]selves the official Creative Laureates of the 2010 World Cup". As such, they are writing flash fiction based on the events of the next month or so, using stories from the papers as starting points. Last time I joined them, we practised this technique; they're due to meet again tomorrow in Nexus Art Cafe from 6pm, if you fancy a go.

Elsewhere, in The Big Exciting World Cup Literary Distraction Extravaganza Of Wondrous Delights, Who The Fudge Is Benjamin Judge? author, er, Benjamin Judge pits writers against each other in a line-up of fixtures reflecting the Big One. In the event of a tie, the Random Sentence Playoff and the Random Word Playoff acts like a penalty shoot-out. I'm glad to report that some of my favourites, Room Temperature novelist Nicholson Baker and local talent Chris Killen (debut The Bird Room pictured), are through to the next round.


If you know of any other similar projects relating to the World Cup, including zines and that, be sure to let me know and I can do an update.