Yes, friends, it's that month again. The one where h2g2ers keep journals and some people try to write a novel in a month. If you're doing that, more power to your typing fingers. Even if you're not, you might want to think about how you can contribute to the Content around here, as they are doing.

I had a bit of an argument with a h2g2er the other day. Okay, it was the Prof. And okay, it wasn't much of an argument. It never is with him. I complained, 'I'm tired of writing and taking photos. I want to read some other people's copy, and I want to see some other people's pics. You have a mobile. Take a picture.'

To which the Prof replied that his neighbourhood was dead boring.

I do not believe this. A couple of weeks ago, I went to Pittsburgh, not the most exciting metropolis on the planet. And saw several interesting and odd things to snap, including the giant dinosaur statue in front of the museum, that somebody had tied a huge, Tom Baker-sized scarf to. Back at home, I went over to the farm, also a sleepy venue, and the goats leaned over the fence, and the kitties offered up a rat of amazing size, and other interesting things happened. So I don't believe Pontefract is that boring. But I won't find out, because the only person I know there insists it's too dull to be bothered with.

Now, I don't fault the Prof. It's up to him whether he wants to try to figure out the digital photo thingy, and he's got important stuff to do. But folks…my point is: it isn't the time or place. It's the observer. As somebody on HooToo once said to me, after I'd nattered on in a journal entry about some absurd non-event at my place, 'You can make more out of less than anyone I know.' I took that as a compliment, dork that I am. Could I interest you in doing likewise in your copious free time?

How do you make ordinary things seem interesting? Well, how about humour? How about imagination?

Think about this:

• Once upon a time, a young fella was lying out in a field in Austria, with a backpack, a copy of a guidebook, and a view of the stars. A dead ordinary event that happened to a lot of us back in the 1970s. Only Douglas Adams turned it into The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is why we're all here.
• O Henry wrote a classic, sublime story once. And he set it in Nashville, Tennessee, one of the most boring cities in the US in 1904. As O Henry said, 'But, dear cousins all (from Adam and Eve descended), it is a rash one who will lay his finger on the map and say: "In this town there can be no romance – what could happen here?" Yes, it is a bold and a rash deed to challenge in one sentence history, romance, and Rand and McNally.' The story is called 'A Municipal Report', and it was considered one of his best.
• Theodore Geisel, aka Doctor Seuss, knew what imagination was worth. Have you ever read 'Marco Comes Late', that saga of adventure on the way to school?
• Batrachomyomachia is a Greek mock-heroic epic about warring frogs and mice (with gods getting involved), dating back to at least the time of Alexander the Great.

You get the idea: making a lot out of a little has a long history. It just takes humour and imagination. If we were creating a website about earth-shattering events, we wouldn't be a user-generated site. We'd be a news portal. (Okay, a lot of them are busy making mountains out of molehills, but that's them being silly.) If we want to do our bit, we need to bring what we have. What we do. And what we do is to share our unique views of the world around us. From our corner of the sofa.

But you know what that takes? It takes two things: the willingness to put a little work into it, and the readiness to share. I suspect you have both.

So point that mobile in the general direction of a traffic cone in an odd place, or a duck trying to use the ATM, or the cat on the windowsill doing something only a cat would think of. Upload it and fiddle. Then sit down and think…what can I say about the old neighbourhood that's interesting? Funny? Puzzling?

And share. Don't be stingy. You're not all from Yorkshire. (And the Prof will tell us a joke or two, even if he thinks his neighbourhood is boring.)

PS: This week, the Prof has made it up to me. He shared the story of the haunted house on his street. Wow, and he says this place is boring...that's the liveliest poltergeist I've ever heard of!

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Dmitri Gheorgheni

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