Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 17th March 2026. (Six Questions.)

17th March, 2026: six questions.

It’s officially official … things have happened!

I’m diabetic, so you know.

Which, the way my condition’s gone, means I have to inject myself with a dose of Mounjaro, once a week.

And have to check my blood sugar levels at least once a day.

All that … ?

This, obviously, means I have a sharps bin, a bin — a bucket, strictly — to store the used needles.

A bin that Brentwood Council picks up and disposes of.

I filled the last one, last week, contacted the council about it, last week, and followed that up, on Friday, just gone.

The contractors Brentwood Council use to do the job?

Phoned me, yesterday, and told me to leave the bucket out, last night: with the bucket in question being picked up, this morning.

I’m grateful!

I’m always worried that something could happen to it, overnight!

~≈♻️≈~

Just as a side question about the introductory video?

Did you see Jamie sneaking across the screen?

I’ve been experiment with the magnetic mask feature, and wanted to know if the figure was noticeable … 

I’m also very aware that the transitions I’d used, would affect the sound, as well as the video: something that, in iMovie, I could prevent by detaching, separating, the audio from the video.

Adding a wipe wouldn’t affect the audio of a clip, if I separated the sound and video elements of a clip.

It was something I couldn’t work out how to do … until my nephew, Jude, spotted the command in a pop-up menu, the last time he was over!

He’s got sharp eyes, my nephew … 

~≈👀≈~

As a last thought … ?

I’ve got the soundtrack of Sinners on in the background.

The film is very good.

And it’s very easy to forget quite how good the music is … !

~≈♬≈~

Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 17-3-2023 — William Gibson.

17th March, 2023: William Gibson.

Right … 

I’m half expecting an old friend, today: although I don’t know if they’ll be able to make it, I’m hoping they will.

Company would be nice.

And I’m very aware they after some buying advise … 

~≈fi≈~

I’m due to attend a tribunal: on the 30th March, this year.

As part of that … ?   The cost service running the tribunal, tells me I need what they call an appeal bundle: the necessary paperwork, in other words.

I’ve checked with the court: they tell me I need to get it from the DWP.

Who, it seems, don’t have it.

Quite what I’m supposed to do now?

I don’t know!

~≈fi≈~

Nik Nak’s Daily Teaser — 17th March, 2022

17th March 2022.

Right … I’d put in for extra financial help.

You’d possibly worked that out, hadn’t you … ?

Tuesday?   I was due a phone call: to double check on details.

A call that finally took place, yesterday.

The decision finally turned up, last night.

It went against me.

Understably?

I’m starting off the appeals process: with what’s call a Mandatory Reconsideration.

Will it work?

I don’t know.

After all, the Wikipedia entry tells us the success rate for Personal Independence Payments is fifteen percent.

But … ?

I think that — however hard this may be? — it’s worth attempting.

~≈Ï≈~

The Daily Teaser — 8-7-2015: Roswell

You know, it has to be said, bedtime reading’s getting good.

No, really!

Frankly, at the moment, I’m re-reading William Gibson’s Neuromancer: the 1984 book that kickstarted the whole Cyberpunk genre.

I have to admit, I’m having something of a blast with it.   Seeing what Case, Molly†, Armitage and the rest of the gang are doing, is like re-visiting old friends.

Especially Molly.   I’ve read the book several times, and keep wanting to see more of her: even though I’ve got through the sequels, AND the original short story version of Johnny Mnemonic*.

Wouldn’t mind seeing her floating around, again.

More than that, though … ?

Gibson never returned to one character’s story, after Neuromancer: never showed us what happened … 

Personally?

I’d love to know more about Case.

I mean, beyond the fact he never saw Molly, agin … !

~≈Ë≈~

The Daily Teaser — 21-4-2015

Did I tell you I’ve got William Gibson’s latest novel, The Peripheral, as bedtime reading … ?

I’m reading William Gibson’s latest, of … 

Yeah, you get my point.

And it HAS to be said, I’m enjoying it, thus far.

I forget where I saw the phrase: but someone described Gibson’s prose as being ‘dizzying’.

I think I know what they mean: he certainly trots along at a good pace.

Personally … ?

‘Enjoying it’ might be too mild a term.

~≈Ê≈~

The Brentwood Gazette’s Weekly Teaser — 4-2-2015: Facebookin’ …

You know, I’ve got to admit: I’m thinking of getting a book out.

Of the library, I should add.

Once I’ve finished the ones I’m ALREADY reading: I’m partway through Assassin’s Quest, by Robin Hobb, so you know.

William Gibson’s The Peripheral is lined up, next.

Terry Pratchett’s A Slip Of The Keyboard lined up for after that.

I want to TRY and line up Invisible Me, by Old Peculiar regular, Debbi Mack, at some point: once I get a Kindle!   I can only hope Debbi’s doing print copies … !

The fact I’d LIKE to re-read Stephen Donaldson’s Chronicles of Thomas Covenant* — possibly the most psychologically murky of fantasy novels — has little to do with it!

There’s too many books: and too little time … !!!!¡!

~≈Ê≈~

Boredom …

You know, it’s GOT to be said … I think I’m bored … 

No, seriously … !

I’ll be frank, being out of work is no fun.

You have little in the way of shape to your day: something I find posting the Teasers, every morning, helps with.

But when there’s nothing on TV, nothing on the iTunes store saying “Spend a little credit on me,” and — frankly — no money to even do something simple like heading for the nearest pub and have a mineral water.

Granted, I don’t drink: and 14 years in the bar trade does tend to take the polish from rooms full of drunk people.

But the simple fact of company — or something to do — is nice.

‘ARRRGGGHH’ seems to be a sensible reaction.

Hmmm … 

You know, now might be a good time to start reading the book I got out of the library the other day.

William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition, here I come … 

Getting A Book Out …

Hmmm …

Well, that’s nice to know …

I book that I’ve ordered from Brentwood Library has finally turned up.

William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition.

Just so you know!

Actually …

Bizarrely, that’s actually mildly disappointing in one regard.

I was expecting a book of poetry, as well, which doesn’t appear to have turned up.

Still … ?

I’ve got to admit to having been something of a fan of Gibson’s, ever since I read his Sprawl trilogy, some yeas ago.

Here’s hoping Pattern Recognition follows nicely on …

»»·««

Oh, one other thing … ?

I had an appointment the Practise nurse, at my GP’s yesterday: I’m in the last few weeks of trying to give up smoking.

One thing that DID put a smile on my face, and snapping away madly with me camera phone … ?

Was a fully laden carriage: with FOUR horses, I should add.

Now what the hell they were up to, I’m blowed if I know.

But it was nice to see.

When the Counting Gets Tough …

Do you remember, a few week’s ago, I wrote about William Gibson’s influential novel, “Neuromancer”?

I was always impressed by it.

And by the sequels, as well, come to that …

And I’m not to sure if I made it clear at the time, but all three novels — “Neuromancer”, “Count Zero”, and “Mona Lisa Overdrive” — are available to read online, at Project Cyberpunk.

It also looks like a certain Mr Gibson wasn’t the first person to use the phrase, although it was in relation to his work I first heard it.

They’re well worth checking out, I think, but I’m something of a sci-fi fan; just a touch biased, you could say …

But moving on …

Both sequels are a little different to the original novel.

“Neuromancer” had one plot; by contrast, both “Count Zero” and “Mona Lisa Overdrive” have three plot threads, that meet and resolve at each sequels climax.

“Count Zero” follows three threads to a joint climax.   One thread follows a mercenary called Turner, as he and others attempt to help a scientist called Mitchell — along with some revolutionary research — defect from the company he works for; another follows the activities of small time, young hacker, Bobby Newmark — the ‘Count Zero’ of the title — almost being killed as a result of testing out some black-market software he’s picked up; the third sees out-of-work art-gallery owner Marly Krushkova, hired by the reclusive industrialist Josef Virek, to trace some Cornell style boxes he’s interested in.   In addition, cyberspace — Gibson’s future version of the net — seems, after the events of “Neuromancer”, to have developed … inhabitants.

Who claim to be Vodou gods …

“Mona Lisa Overdrive” uses the same form three-thread, one climax form.   The third novel in Gibson’s Sprawl trilogy sees title character, and hooker, Mona hired for an unexplained, and possibly dangerous, job.   A second thread sees gangster’s daughter Kumiko having to move to London — and assigned Molly, one of the central characters of “Neuromancer” — for safety during a Yakuza mob war.   Thread three finds reclusive artist and ex-con, Slick Henry being burdened with an apparently comatose body, hook up to a very strange — and very LARGE — exterior-drive.

Now writing a story like this isn’t something else, except in other works by William Gibson; “All Tomorrow’s Parties” springs to mind, but don’t quote me on that.

I couldn’t even tell you what what the technique is called.

 

But I do know I’ve enjoyed these.

Go follow those links through.

I think you’ll like them.

Neuromancing the stone …

Sorry, I couldn’t resist the movie title pun, there.

But I’ve been meaning to mention William Gibson’s famed 1984 novel;  the fact that tonight, I’ve found that the IMDb entry for it lists it as being in development, and expected to hit the screen in 2011.

Just in time for Brentwood’s new cinema, if it does …

I’m interested.

Definitely interested.

I’m no literary critic; - you can tell, can’t you?

So bear that in mind, while I write …

I read this one – with this very cover, in fact – in the late 1980’s, and found its mix of near future setting, industrial espionage plot and very street characters to be a fascinating combination;  one that read much like an old fashioned detective novel, tangled with the grease-covered look and feel of “Alien” or “Bladerunner”.

I came away from that first reading impressed.   As much by the characters, the iconic Molly, and the seriously seedy Finn, as much as anything else.   I wasn’t too sure I’d completely understood the ending as thoroughly as I could.   So read it again, at least three or four times, to make sure I could explain it as thoroughly as I feel I – possibly – may now be able to.

But I’ll try not to give away too much of that ending, I think I should leave you to read it, and let me know what you think.

Possibly before commenting on a movie version.

It’s fairly simple.

“Neuromancer” follows the life of Henry Dorset Case, over the course – I think – an approximately two month period.   Case is a cybernetically enhanced former hacker, who, as a result of trying to double-cross some gangsters he’d worked for, has been tortured and damaged to prevent him reconnecting with anything on what we now call the internet, but what Gibson called cyberspace.

Nice for an author, to be able to coin a word or phrase, isn’t it*?

And, as a result of this, and living a semi-homeless, criminal lifestyle in Japan, gets an … offer.

Of being healed, and able to reconnect to the Matrix he was so addicted to.   So long as he does a few jobs, for his new employer.

I use the words ‘Matrix’ and ‘addicted’, advisedly, here.   From what William Gibson writes of Case, he has certainly got a few bad habits – to the point that the offer he rapidly accepts includes a new liver and pancreas – that Mr Case only gets told about, once they’re in place – and reacts to being able to hook up to the Net in what, to me, seems a familiar way.   And, while I can find no references, I also believe that on top of the various philosophical works that the makers of “The Matrix” movie franchise had, “Neuromancer” could well have been an influencing factor.   If for no other reason than the hiring of Keanu Reeves.

Back to the plot, though, the jobs Case is – is, or are?  I can never work out – is to co-ordinate raids stealing a very important piece of kit and the kidnapping of one the personnel for the final job.

The hacking of a very powerful Artificial Intelligence …

Which is where I’ll the plot summary, I think, I’d rather not spoil things too much …

But Gibson’s book is seen as very important.   Certainly in literary terms, it’s one of the most talked about pieces of science-fiction around … quite probably on a par with “2001: A Space Oddyssey”, “Star Wars”, or “Bladerunner”º, in terms of recognition factor.   And one that also introduced the term ‘cyberspace’ as a synonym for ‘net’ or ‘internet’, well before “The Matrix” did the same for the word ‘matrix’.

Which is why I’m interested in seeing what happens with any projected film version of it.   William Gibson admitted in one or two earlyish interviews, that the grimy feel of “Alien”; – indeed wrote one of the many early draft versions of the script for “Alien 3”.

Speaking personally I feel the movie version of “Johnny Mnemonic” didn’t do the original Gibson penned short story much justice.

So, hopefully, I believe this is a chance to do a better effort.

I’m not holding out much hope, though.

But …

Well, here’s hoping any projected film of “Neuromancer” bears as good a resemblance as possible to its source material.

There’ll be a lot of disappointed fans out there, if it doesn’t.

* I know of at least one TV writer that’s done something similar.   After all, we all speak of politician’s, traffic wardens – anyone a touch too authoritarian for our liking – as being Dalek-like, in the sense of being Nazi-like.   Thank you, Terry Nation.

º Which was the name of the film, obviously; the original novel was, of course, Philip K. Dick’s “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep”