Blue Sky Thinking

It's amazing the difference a few days can make.  Last time I posted here, back on Tuesday evening, the cold and gloomy weather had got to me - I was feeling pretty down, on top of what seemed like days of overcast skies, I'd had a pretty lousy day at work.  I was seriously considering posting something extremely depressing that would encapsulate my mood of utter despair.  Thankfully, at the last minute, I changed my mind and wrote some toss about John Major, instead.  Then Wednesday dawned with clear skies and sunshine.  I learned a long time ago that the best cure for the kind of seasonal low-level depression I'd felt settling in over the past few days, it is a blast of sunlight.  Not only does it lift my spirits, banishing dark thoughts and preoccupations, but it also sees off the physical manifestations of depression: the aches, pains and physical exhaustion that plague me during these bouts.

So, with my batteries recharged by a couple of days of wintry sunshine, I can look to the future again - where the most pressing issue is coming up with a suitably seasonally themed story for The Sleaze this Christmas.  Over the past thirteen years I've come up with all manner of variations on Christmas satire stories, usually involving Santa Claus being involved in some unseasonal activities.  To be honest, I often wonder why I bother, as such stories rarely do that well in traffic terms, (that said, last year's Cult of The Christmas Cock, a rare non-Santa story, did OK), partly due to their relatively small 'window of topicality'.  However, I also think that you can't afford to ignore major seasonal events altogether - I feel it gives readers the impression that the site is on 'autopilot', with stories written months in advance and published on a strict schedule, rather than reflecting actual events in the real world.  But getting back to the matter in hand, I've had a couple of ideas for this year's Christmas story, neither of them exactly earth-shattering, but they do at least tie into other topical events, so we'll see what develops.  In the meantime, long may those skies remain clear!