"Today a plethora of web development tools let professionals
create web pages any parent would be proud to hang on the refrigerator"
Mr Bunny's Guide to ActiveX,
Carlton Egremont III
The pages from here onwards contain a selection of items that don't really have anything to do with the JPA business. To be honest, they probably shouldn't really be here at all, but what the hell.
Or to put it another way, welcome to Jon's fridge. Attached to it you will find miscellaneous writings and music. Enjoy ...
The first one is an article written for that excellent (now defunct) magazine Freelance Informer, describing an encounter with a Famous Person. If nothing else, take a look at the photo, if you're into 70s style ...
Next is a short story, also written for Freelance Informer, called "Accidental Death of a Manager". No, I wasn't thinking of anyone in particular. I don't wish to brag (well, only a bit) but several years ago, this was (yay!) a competition winner at one of the St Albans writers groups, the excellent Verulam Writers' Circle.
Then we have a short humorous poem. Well, it made me laugh anyway. Actually, what really made me laugh was that in the days when I took a close interest in who was hitting this site, it turned out that a lot of people found it during searches for "School Uniform". I have a feeling that they may not necessarily have been looking for poetry.
In a somewhat futile attempt to cover all possible forms of fiction, here's a short play for radio, entitled "D.O.E." This actually earned me a meeting with a drama editor at the BBC a few years back, although that's as far as it went. But if there's anyone out there who'd like to put it on, I'd still love to hear from them. Mind you, I should warn you. It's a bit odd.
And here's a winning entry for a competition in The Independent. I only reproduce it here because I think it's actually once of my best pieces of writing, even if it is less than 100 words long.
And to finish the writing, here's a brief story on the subject of Writer's Block. I have a feeling that this was once a VWC winner as well - must have been a slow year ...
Now for something new - it's about time we had some MP3s available for download on the site. So here (at last) is the notorious Dance for Oboe Trombone and Piano, Op.1. The piece is performed (if that's the right word) by my two stepbrothers, Michael and Julian Brandon (Trombone and Piano, respectively) and myself (Oboe). Michael deserves especial credit for dealing manfully with a score that I'd written in C Major (so that I didn't have to bother with any tedious sharps or flats), which is unfortunately a hideous key for brass players. And, yes, it was recorded a long, long time ago. And, no, I haven't written anything else since.
Finally, a real curiosity. In my last year at university, I answered an ad asking for people to join a spontaneous music group. Well, several others did as well, and the net result was that we ended up improvising like fury every week, making some very strange music. We taped pretty much everything we did, and I'm very pleased to present a couple of examples for you here. Occasionally, against all the odds, a fully-formed piece emerged from the overall chaos, and this was one of them. And sometimes, it was a bit angrier, like this one (the real fun starts about two and a half minutes in). Most of the time, as you may imagine, it was pretty awful. (Trust me, I've listened through all the old tapes.) The final nail in the coffin was our choice of name for ourselves: Misunderstood on the Way to Sanesberries. No, I don't remember what it meant, either.
There's a strange postscript to all this. When I moved to London to start work, I attempted to set up a similar group in Streatham (yeah, I know). I got one response, from a guy who was more into writing songs and poetry at the time. I thought he was a complete loser. Recently, I was clearing out some old papers and I came across the note and spotted the name on the bottom - John Hegley. Which just goes to show what a shrewd judge of talent I am. Not.