There comes a time in every writer's life when love rears its ugly head. Yes, you've progressed that novel that you always knew was in you and you've succeeded in getting half of it out of you and onto paper. You feel quite a bit lighter for having done so (of soul if not of pounds and ounces) but now you've reached a tricky part. You see, your hero has been flirting with his or her dream girl/boy and now the initial coyness has worn off and they are about to enter the next phase of their fledgling relationship, which will involve actual physical contact.

Now, unless you are a writer of romance novels or erotica, the chances are that the thought of having to write a love scene may fill you with a deep dark sense of dread. Your concerns may intensify when you realise that there's actually a Bad Sex awards gong that is bestowed by the Literary Review each year. Its aim is to flag up examples of hideous atrocities that have been committed by writers when writing love scenes. Included amongst the list of nominees are some high profile names, such as Will Self, John Updike and Irvine Welsh.

Tom Wolfe was the winner of the Bad Sex awards in 2004 for a passage, from his novel "I am Charlotte Simmons", that included the following cringe-worthy section:

"Slither slither slither slither went the tongue, but the hand that was what she tried to concentrate on, the hand, since it has the entire terrain of her torso to explore and not just the otorhinolaryngological caverns - oh God, it was not just at the border where the flesh of the breast joins the pectoral sheath of the chest - no, the hand was cupping her entire right - Now! She must say "No, Hoyt" and talk to him like a dog ..."

Otorhinolaryngological caverns? Pectoral sheath? Even if the lady in question was a doctor, with an intimate knowledge of anatomy, I strongly suspect that she would not be thinking of such dry and precise terminology whilst in the throes of passion!

I guess what this shows is that even seasoned professional authors can take leave of their senses when faced with the thorny challenge of writing a steamy love scene? That's of some consolation, I'm sure, to the plethora of unpublished amateur writers who find themselves faced with the same challenge.

How though can we minimise the risk of writing something that is truly horrible? Well, the good news is that help is at hand as you can read my advice on writing a love scene, via this link:

http://www.helium.com/items/1462317-best-ways-to-write-a-love-scene-and-how-to-avoid-being-nominated-for-the-bad-sex-awards

I hope that you will find this advice useful and that you avoid some of the worst excesses of romantic writing that have landed authors such as Wolfe, Self and Welsh their Bad Sex nominations. Interestingly, politician Alastair Campbell also secured a nomination when he tried his hand to writing. Maybe he should stick to being a spin doctor?  

On Remembrance Sunday, it's perhaps apt to talk about heroes. However, rather than soldiers who fought and died that we might retain our independence, I want to talk about super heroes. You see, I heard a sad tale recently about a hero who had been through tough times and had turned to the dark side.

This poignant story was told eloquently by Mister Ozzy Osbourne in the Black Sabbath song called 'Iron Man'. The story of this once-proud super hero was told as follows:

'He was turned to steel / in the great magnetic field / where he traveled time / for the future of mankind.

Nobody wants him / he just stares at the world / planning his vengeance / that he wil soon unfold.'

Now, I'm not really familiar with the Iron Man super hero story but it strikes me that we've got to a bad place if once revered heroes of our times have been discarded and made bitter by the hurtful apathy that they now encounter. The key question, though, is are there more embittered once-were-super heroes out there? Is Superman now living in a council tenement, with no central heating and walls that run with damp? His once dark hair now grey and those trademark muscles now atrophied and his fingers riddled with arthritis. Maybe next door Popeye is in the final stages of dementia, with a bent-backed Olive Oil having to provide loving around-the-clock care.

Of course, those depictions of Superman and Popeye are purely fictional. We all know that Superman is still pretty much in his prime, appearing on television frequently, and that Popeye's healthy diet (mainly spinach) means that he is still fighting fit. Anyway, he divorced from Olive and moved in with Betty Boo. 

Still, the point is valid, I think. There must be plenty of other super heroes that time has forgotten. Wonder Woman possibly? The Six Million Dollar Man? Inflation has reduced him significantly, me thinks? 

With Children in Need day coming up, our thoughts will be turning to how we can raise money to help disadvantaged kids across the globe. Surely, though, it's time for a Super Heroes in Need day? Joanathan Ross is free, apparently, to present it and, if nothing else, it would be a great excuse to dress up in super hero costumes! Come on, let's make it happen - Bananaman and his friends need you!

I was checking out a funny spoof news website, called The Daily Mash, today that had lots of humorous stories related to the deteriorating economic position. This included a brilliant report stating that economists are now warning of the likelihood of Billy Bragg. Apparently, the 'dire financial climate means there is now a greater chance of the communist singer-songwriter than at any time since 1987'! Check out their website here, www.thedailymash.co.uk .

I can just imagine Billy Bragg emerging from a hibernation spent in the depths of some cave and cautiously sniffing the air for signs of a financial meltdown. I guess what this shows is that every cloud truly does have a silver lining. Sure, the economy may be worsening, inflation may be rising, and the world entering a deep dark recession but, cheer up, cos at least it's a boom time for comedy writers and political activist singers.

So if you're a funny political activist singer, then I guess you should be about to hit gold, although you'd never be able to appear happy about your good fortune cos, like, you're so angry about politicians, bankers, oil tycoons and capitalism. 

As a sketch writer, I should certainly have a good stock of ideas to work upon. Maybe a war between Iceland and Britain, only Gordon Brown thinks it's Iceland food stores that he's fighting? Or something about it being like the 80s again, with people imitating events from that era. Liverpool's footballers would all be busy growing moustaches and would start to win things. Meanwhile, there'd be another big strike but, instead of a Miners' strike, we'd have a Minors' strike because spelling standards have slipped. All these little tots would be manning (no sorry, boying) the barricades shouting that they want an end to Jamie Oliver school lunches! Or an end to Jamie Oliver himself - now there would be a cause to unite the nation and raise spirits!  

I had a very vivid dream recently, in which I was underwater and there was this very big, very ugly, fish which was hovering in the water. It looked a bit like one of those Angler fish which have a little lure which they flick to attract prey into the vicinity of their razor sharp rows of teeth. Anyway, the picture of this fish was very clear in my dream and then it suddenly did something that I wasn't expecting - it lunged at me and I saw its teeth-filled jaws clamping shut! The shock of this caused me to wake from my dream with a start. Scary but cool also!

This got me to thinking about the meaning of dreams? I didn't know what my dream meant but I could guess that it wasn't good! A quick internet search brought me to a website that professed to be able to interpret the meaning of our deepest darkest dreams. It had a section on animals in dreams, so I followed that link and scrolled down until I had found 'fish'.

The website said that 'to see fish swimming in your dream, symbolizes good luck; personal wealth and power may be on your way'. Sounds good but it didn't say anything about being eaten by one of those nicely swimming fish! 

I persevered, therefore, and did another Google search. This led me to a link that said that 'nightmares about drowning or being eaten by fish often mean being overwhelmed by something you can't control'. Given that we can't control our dreams, it may well be that I was feeling overwhelmed at the thought of being devoured by an ugly fish in my dreams?!

I'm sure there's a lot that we still have to learn about the nature of dreams. They are fascinating and elicit a huge range of emotions. One area that still provokes controversy is whether dreaming is something that is unique to humans? Having observed cats and dogs sleeping, I'm pretty certain that animals do indeed dream. Indeed, it would be pretty weird (and arrogant of us humans) to think that we humans are the only animal to display this sleep trait. 

I guess this means that fish may dream so maybe, somewhere in the depths of an ocean, there is an ugly big fish dreaming of being eaten by a gigantic human?! If so, there's a good chance that he's not analysing the meaning of it, however! 

I read an amusing thing recently. My office is part of a really beautiful campus that has a small river running through it and quite a lot of land attached. The note was the minutes of a meeting to discuss the ongoing maintenance of the flora and fauna on the grounds. 

Apparently, because we're close to an airport, there are restrictions on the number of birds that are allowed on the grounds. Now you might ask yourself 'how do you restrict the number of birds?' I mean it's not as if you can put up barbed wire fences to keep them out. It would be nice to think that we had garishly-attired scarecrows pegged out across the lawns, like some weird crucifixtion scene, but we don't. Instead, apparently, we're simply not allowed to have trees or bushes that bear fruit that would attract birds. 

Unfortunatley, though, the river has fish in it and has attracted not one but two herons. Now one would be okay but we're not allowed two! The second heron is therefore being encouraged to leave, which brings to mind an image of the groundsman stalking around shooing the heron away, or maybe he's got some spotty-faced apprentice who he makes do all the dirty work.

Also included in the groundsman's tasks was removing detritus from the river, which revealed that the river also contains leeches! I hope they're paying him danger money cos his troubles don't end there. You see we've also got a pesky escapee mink who has evaded all attempts thus far to catch him. The task of entrapping the critter is made complicated by the fact that we don't want to harm the otters.

What? Otters, mink, herons and leeches?! Forget doing any work, we should get a TV crew in and make a fortune from one of those animal diary programmes. In this credit crunch doom-laden time, fluffy bitey animals is what we need!

If there are any other weird animal antics, you'll hear it here first. It won't feature badgers, as they've been moved to a new home, but I'm hoping that we may diversify to become a zoo and bring in big cats and polar bears. At least, that would give the mink something to think about! 

My company is currently reviewing its leadership principles. It's the kind of exercise that organisations tend to go through every few years and there's nothing wrong with that. However, it did prompt me to Google 'leadership principles'. The top result that this returned was for the Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps, UC Berkeley and their principles can be found here, http://navyrotc.berkeley.edu/resources/gouge/leaderprinciples.stm .

What I like about them is how straightfoward and clearly articulated they are. There's no glib 'one team, one dream' type guff, which you can just imagine wouldn't go down well with a bunch of marines. Indeed, their principles have a resolutely military feel to them. You can just imagine a stiff-backed man in uniform, standing in front of a line of recruits and shouting 'Take responsibility for your actions and the actions of your Sailors or Marines!'

It got me to thinking what it would be like if civilian companies employed military leadership techniques? So it's Tuesday morning and the boss marches across to your office cubicle. He's brandishing a sheath of paper in his hand and then shouts 'What's this, Wilson? You call this a report?! Get down and give me fifty!'

The other thing that those Berkeley naval guys have is an honor code. I particularly like the midshipsman's honor code which reads as follows: 'A Midshipman does not lie, cheat, steal, or engage in any activity which would compromise the integrity and security of his or her conscience, the well-being of the unit, or the values of the United States Navy and Marine Corps.'

Powerful stuff! If translated to this office, though, what would the office worker's honor code be? Well, how about something like this: 'An office worker does not pilfer paper clips, waste time forwarding tawdry joke e-mails and does not hide his colleague's stapler. An office worker does not engage in any activity that might compromise the integrity of customer data, such as losing his laptop in a strip bar, and works to maximise the wellbeing of his team, department, division and company.'

Of course the trade unions wouldn't countenance any such honor code. Again, picture the scene. A trade unionist enters the boss' office and slams a hairy fist down on the desk. Then in a broad Yorkshire accents asserts that 'You can't do this, lad. It infringes t'rights of workers!' This tense scene is interrupted, though,  when a young line manager storms into the office. She's just been through the newly militarised leadership principles course. Without hesitating, she pulls out a luger and blows the trade unionist away!

I'm a fan of vampire films and TV programmes. Recently, I got to thinking about how all vampires portrayed on TV seem to have a fine set of teeth. I can't really remember seeing any vampires who had lots of teeth missing.

Following on from this, I wondered whether vampires actively select people who have had the benefit of orthodonistry when deciding who to sire? If so, that feels slightly discriminatory. After all, it tends to be middle class well off parents who treat their kids to the joys of braces.

The other question that I've been pondering is the process by which those oversized fangs emerge. Do you need to have your existing canines and then they extend once the corpse rises from the grave? Or are those vampire canines like a third set of teeth? Imagine the teething pains!

I like the thought of a vampire crawling up through the soil, only to discover that a lifetime's over indulgence of sugary products means that the are denied their vampire fangs. And then they'd have to order a custom-made set of falsies to enable them to bite their victims.

In fact, I'm sure there's good potential for a comedy sketch. Or alternatively, it would have made for a good comic turn in a Buffy episode!

This week saw all manner of claims that the end of the world was nigh. The reason? Well, some scientists have created a scientific instrument that can be used to crash beams of protons into each other in an attempt to reproduce the conditions that existed in the first billionth of a second after the Big Bang that started our world.

The fear, apparently, was that the scientists would somehow accidentally cause a black hole to be created that would suck all life into it. The first tests, however, went well and the world seems to be going on as per usual. I did have a momentary scare when I thought that a small black hole had appeared on my desk at work. Thanfully, it turned out to be a fleck of dirt. Crisis over!

The device that smashes these particles together is called the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and scientists have decided that what they need is a more catchy name. They've therefore invited people to submit ideas for a new name to the following e-mail address: edwards@rsc.org. I've put through some suggestions including the New Dawn and the Revelator. I'm sure they will be inundated with suggestions but ones such as the World Killer or Black Hole Maker will probably be rejected!

The next big date for the testing is apprently due to be the 21st of October so, if you're one of the people who thinks it'll cause the end of the world, then make sure you complete all projects, etc, well in advance of that date!

I read a newspaper article today about how unpopular a leader Gordon Brown is. For those who don't know, Gordon Brown is the UK Prime Minister but is widely expected to be dethroned at the next general election.

The article was saying that it was felt that there weren't really any other viable options within the Labour party, no-one who would be considered (by the populace) to be a safe pair of hands.

If we want a safe pair of hands, though, I pondered, perhaps we should opt for a goalkeeper? I mean, they couldn't really be much worse than some of the goons that we've had (Blair and Thatcher spring to mind).

However, following through on this idea reveals some problems. Looking at some of the options we've got Scott Carson, Paul Robinson and David 'Calamity' James, three English goalkeepers who are renowned for big-time errors and gaffes.

An alternative would be the reliable Craig Gordon but he's Scottish and i get the feeling that the English wouldn't want another Scot after Brown. Northern Irish keeper Maik Taylor was born in Germany so he'd fit in well with the Royal family but it probably wouldn't be a vote winner.

With the absence of capable safe hands from the current generation of goalkeepers, I think we would need to go back to a previous generation. Gordon Banks for PM it is then. He might have a few difficulties winning votes in Scotland, but the man who made 'that' save against Pele would surely provide the safe hands that seemingly we're in need of?!

Well, it's September which means it's officially Autumn (or Fall for any North American readers), which is depressing as we've not had a summer this year. It's just been one continual grey sky plonked above the UK this year and depositing rain of biblical proportions down upon us.

Never mind, I guess that just means that we've had lots of time to write or surf the Internet and relax indoors. However, in just four years time the Olympics will be coming to London and I reckon the organisers need to start thinking now about what indoor events can quickly be added. Snooker, pool, and darts seem like no-brainers and possibly squash too. How come badminton and tennis are in the Olympics but squash isn't? It seems rather arbitrary. I have a vision of the Olympics' founding fathers having a list of sports on a wall, being blindfolded, and then pointing blindly towards the sports that would be allowed entry!

Of course, the UK did amazingly well in the Chinese Olympics, shocking the world and annoying the Aussies who have claimed that we can only win in sports that involve sitting down! At a recent work away day, we were tasked with coming up with our own ideas for new events that the UK could do well at. My team came up with the Victorian Triathlon Relay, an event comprised of a doggy paddle swim (in the Thames), followed by a penny farthing cycle ride (over a bumpty BMX track) and then finally a pub crawl. We had Rebecca Adlington, Chris Hoy and Johnny Vegas on each respective leg and feel that we'd definitely beat the Aussies and all other nations at that event! Start the petition for it now! The only objection that was raised to our pitch was the possible effect on the NHS to have so many people swimming in the polluted Thames. This objection dissipated, however, as soon as I pointed out that only one of the swimmers would be British so the cost to the NHS would actually be very small!

I wonder what other weird and wonderful new sports can be created, so that we can start to rival the US and China?!