I’m working out if I can host my podcast on micro.blog directly. I mean, I can, but I don’t think I have the skills to make sure everything looks right in Apple Podcasts. That all the information is there, and in the right fields.

I like quirky, unusual people, with offbeat humour and deep wells of laughter.

I’ve been trying micro.blog for a couple of years now, on and off. Recently I moved my website here. It feels right because we’re all works in progress - micro.blog, me, and my site.

I’ve had a lot of websites, too, which also felt fake. And I could never write email newsletters because … what on earth would I say?

I don’t use Facebook or Instagram, or the app formerly known as Twitter. I’ve tried them, and the remains of my efforts are still there, I think, but those apps never gelled with me. There was never a good use to make of them, for an introvert like me. It all felt very strange and artificial.

My kind of writing isn’t really meant for picture books. It goes on too long. It follows ideas into the undergrowth and loses sight of the main path. It arrives, eventually, but it’s all about the journey.

Manuela wrestled three of Sascha Martin’s adventures into picture books, but it couldn’t go on. A fourth, Sascha Martin’s Christmas Eve, was an experiment with black and white in a new format. It’s a good-looking book, but it’s still not quite where Sascha wants to go.

My writing doesn’t fit anyone’s genre.

I write in rhyming verse, for no good reason, and rhyming verse is meant to be heard out loud. Hence the podcast - Sascha Martin’s Ripping News. No one writes narrative verse these days, not for any length of time, but for me it’s the simplest way to tell a story. The form is part of what happens, and it helps to guide the tale.

I’ve written other stories like this. One’s about a werewolf. One’s about a gorgon concerned for its legacy. One’s about a Pharaoh who’s just too busy to die. And then there’s the girl who encounters a ghost. I should publish them here perhaps, or record them, or gather them in a single volume with spot illustrations by someone funny and clever.

Yes. That’d be cool.

As I voice what I’ve written, I’m confronted by the urge to rewrite. There’s always another way to say what’s been said, so no piece of writing is ever quite finished.

Trying not to rewrite as I record is just one challenge among many.

I can only record audio on Sundays. The time in between fills up with self-doubt and criticism.

Politicians and certain others aside, we tend to dislike hearing ourselves. Listening to my own voice is difficult. I’d love to hear Sascha’s stories read by someone who really knows what they’re doing with their voice, an actor, a performer, with audio production by experts.

But we start where we are.

Work continues on episodes of the podcast. When I started this I didn’t appreciate how many obstacles I’d be facing. Surely, I thought, I can record myself reading the stories.

I’m not an actor, though. I’m not a performer, and I’m not an audio engineer.

But I am a huge self-critic, and the internal voice is forever damning my speech, my expression, my technical skills and my editing. It’s constantly rubbishing the entire project. All I want to do is get these stories out there in an accessible form - short audio episodes to fit into busy routines - to see if there’s an audience for them. But in my mind I’m comparing them to the BBC.

I didn’t think I had to voice actual characters. I thought I could just read their lines expressively. But as I go on I find myself wanting real voices for Sascha and Luca, Aggie, Aisha and the indomitable, insufferable Mary-Alice. I have a Sascha voice that I don’t much like, and a Mary-Alice tone that sometimes hits right.

Recently I asked someone with a wonderful to be the voice of Aisha. I thought she’d wandered off to other endeavours, but she’s still on board, still keen, and still sounds brilliant. The podcast is progressing, and one day it will launch, officially. Meanwhile, the teasers are available here on the site.

It’s science on the fly as Sascha crafts a critically cataclysmic collision of cosmic consequence, and suddenly it’s the girls they’re all afraid of. Sascha Martin’s Zombie Dust.

Where can you run, on a mountain made of balls? How do you hide from a drooling girl?

It’s all slippery slopes and midnight cravings as Sascha battles a pair of apocalypses only he could have created.

A Wee Bit of Integrity is my book of limericks based on the Irish TV show that I loved, called Derry Girls.

I wanted to use some of the show’s imagery on the book’s cover, and wrote to Channel 4 in the UK (many times) to seek their permission. They’re the copyright holders, but I also wrote to Hat Trick, the production company, and even tried to contact Lisa McGee, who wrote the series.

None of them replied. Ever.

It’s a jolly bad show, I reckon!

So until I can afford to have an illustrated cover designed, my Wee Bit of Integrity must endure as is. Sob!

Of course, if you have a direct line to the rights department at Channel 4, I’d really appreciate your help :)

Six of my books are available in paperback, as print-on-demand through Lightning Source and Ingram. The easiest way to buy them is to enquire at your favourite bookseller, and quote the ISBN (International Standard Book Number).

To make it easier, I've listed them below.

Sascha Martin's Rocket-Ship: A Hilarious Sci Fi Action and Adventure Book for Kids
Written by John Arthur Nichol
Illustrated by Manuela Pentangelo
ISBN 978-0-9954183-0-1

Sascha Martin's Time Machine: A Kids' Scifi Adventure That Will Have You in Stitches. It's Funny, Too!
Written by John Arthur Nichol
Illustrated by Manuela Pentangelo
ISBN 978-0-9954183-5-6

Sascha Martin's Super Ball: His Worst Disaster yet ... by Leaps and Bounds!
Written by John Arthur Nichol
Illustrated by Manuela Pentangelo
ISBN 978-0-6489059-6-7

Sascha Martin's Christmas Eve: It's a Magical Journey, or Else!
Written by John Arthur Nichol
Illustrated by Manuela Pentangelo
ISBN 978-0-9954183-9-4

The Fifth Line: Limericks after Lear Book One
Written by John Arthur Nichol
Illustrated by Rory Walker
ISBN 978-0-6489059-0-5

The Next Hundred Lears: Limericks after Lear Book Two
Written by John Arthur Nichol
Illustrated by Rory Walker
ISBN 978-0-6489059-4-3

Sascha Martin’s Ripping News: the Podcast, by John Arthur Nichol

Teaser Episode 3: Sascha Martin’s Gobbly Goo, Part Three

Our third and final Teaser concludes the tale of Sascha Martin’s Gobbly Goo, an incident too rude to be told. At the end of Teaser 2, the galloping goo had overrun the last great bastion of order and authority. Now, listen on, as Sascha’s nightmare gobbles its way to an end that isn’t, though it’s pretty conclusive.

Worst day ever!

But is it? Really?

Sascha Martin’s Ripping News: the Podcast, by John Arthur Nichol

Teaser Episode 2: Sascha Martin’s Gobbly Goo, Part Two

In Teaser 2 we continue the regrettable tale of Sascha Martin’s Gobbly Goo, an episode taken out of sequence because laughter is an important thing to share. If you’ve listened to Teaser 1, you’ll know that something truly terrible has happened to Mary-Alice Cooper, drama queen; and now this truly terrible something is coming for everyone … and everything … and everywhere.

Now, listen on.

Teaser 3, where fate intervenes, and there’s no escape from terminal embarrassment.

Sascha Martin’s Ripping News: the Podcast, by John Arthur Nichol

Teaser Episode 1: Sascha Martin’s Gobbly Goo, Part One

This story was written years ago, but I could never work out how to finish it because, as you’ll hear, there’s not much left to work with in the end. But I liked the story because it was funny and rude, and diabolical for the grown-ups involved. So here it is - Sascha Martin’s Gobbly Goo: an embarrassing story in three parts.

Teaser 2, where Sascha’s Gobbly Goo unleashes its naked power.

Transcript

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still testing

This is a test post.

First Post

which was actually the name of a wartime publication by the 1st Battalion, 2nd AIF (the City of Sydney Regiment).

Closure of Russian Consulate in Sydney

Petition EN5399

Only 18 days remain for citizens and residents of Australia to sign the e-petition to the Australian Government calling for the closure of Russia’s Consulate in Sydney.

Please read the petition and add your signature at:

https://www.aph.gov.au/e-petitions/petition/EN5399

Thank you

🇺🇦 #Ukraine #StandWithUkraine #RussiaIsATerroristState

A brown Dachshund prances across the road, its tiny legs like springs on the asphalt.

On Sunday the Russians killed a girl who’d only lived for 23 days. They also killed her parents, and her brother who was 12 years old. He died in the hospital.

At Wynyard the tiny girl squeezes past on her father’s arm. She looks right at me and I wiggle a finger at her. Her mother smiles. The girl is unmoved.

Inside the bus, a tiny girl is higher than everyone, squeaking real words as her dad points out the sights.