Jan

7

Not Giving Up The Day Job Quite Yet

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Gosh, how exciting. My half-yearly royalty statement from John Wiley and Sons came through the post today, and I was amazed to find out that I’m still earning $$$ from software books that I gave up writing half a dozen years ago. Just under $150 in six months, no less. I promise not to spend it all at once.

Meanwhile, less impressive news from Public Lending Right. This is the first year that I’ve been signed up for this, and according to my statement, a grand total of 8 people borrowed a book which I have a 7% interest in, at 5.98p per loan. Which makes a grand total of just over 3p. So I’m not giving up the day job quite yet.

Dec

18

Best Blog Post Ever

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I was just about to put together one of those reflective posts that discuss the various wonderful things I’ve done this year and the even more wonderful things that I’m really going to do next year (win the Bridport, publish best-selling novel, that kind of thing), when I came across this, from Paul Klugman’s blog. Paul Klugman recently won the Nobel prize for economics. Now that is class.

What is slightly disconcerting about this is that when I saw it, I immediately got the joke. I described it to my daughter, who did not. She had not heard of lolcats. She is 20. I am somewhat older than that. I need to get out more.

Dec

10

When Slay Bells Ring

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My ever-inventive chum Toby Frost, author of the excellent Space Captain Smith books, has now produced a Christmas Special. Woo hoo! Read it here, and then go and buy the books if you haven’t already.

Dec

3

Nanotechnologists and Electro-encephalographs

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I recently submitted a poem containing the word “Nanotechnologist”, which I was rather pleased about. I have no idea whether or not I was right to feel pleased about this, because I haven’t yet heard back from the market in question (and don’t expect to for a while yet). However, this led to an interesting discussion on our writers’ circle forum on shoe-horning difficult words into poems, in the course of which two of us independently proposed that the finest example of this ever occurred in the song “Nervous Wreck” by the Radio Stars. If you’ve ever heard it, you’ll know exactly what I mean, and if you haven’t, why on earth not?

Here it is:

Isn’t that the best chorus of all time?

Nov

24

Treading Water …

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I really should be working on my entry for Eurofiction Task 4 right now, but for some reason although I reckon I’ve got the germ of a decent idea, I can’t get down to actually writing the thing. I think it may be the shock of getting a fairly good score for my Task 3 entry, which was scribbled down in less than an hour in our hotel room in HK. What is really weird is that the piece I came up with wouldn’t look out of place in Take A Break. And just when I thought I was getting the hang of dark and literary. I’m also getting this curious feeling that somewhere, just out of reach, is the novel that I really want to be writing right now. So I’m wondering if I should perhaps take a break (as it were) from all this prompted stuff to find out what it might be.

Apart from that, there ain’t much going on apart from a few rejections, none of which came as a big surprise, so I’ll leave you with some links to some other stuff:

  1. A rant of mine about the BBC and its critics over at If Shakespeare …
  2. My mate Toby’s interview in SFX (w00t! SFX, eh?)
  3. My mate Steve’s piece in The Independent.
  4. Possibly the best Downfall mash-up produced so far on the subject of the BNP membership list fiasco.

Enjoy.

Finally, a thought after watching “Einstein and Eddington” last night. Phrases that are unlikely to enter the critical lexicon (#1 in a series): “Another typically understated performance by Andy Serkis.”

Nov

18

Back Again …

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… from a week and a bit in Hong Kong. Whilst I was away I managed to get to the shortlist for the Café Doom competition, with a final placing of seventh. I’m quite pleased about this, because the story I submitted, “The Future of Photography”, was a rather unpleasant sweary and violent first-person, present-tense piece, thus committing several sins in one go. I’m not entirely sure what to do with it now, but I think it probably deserves another outing somewhere. The winning story, “The Rules” by Jaelithe Ingold, managed to be extremely elegant as well as taking a big gamble with the form – watch out for that one when it appears in Necrotic Tissue.

Might post a few pics of HK when I’m marginally less jet-lagged. Fab place.

Nov

5

I♥USA

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Sometimes when you look across the pond, you despair. And then sometimes when you look, you are filled with awe. This is one of those times.

Twenty-five years ago, I went on a trip around the States using Greyhound buses (Paul Simon, you have a lot to answer for). I ended up in Washington just at the time when a big march was being organised to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s march on Washington, when he made his “I have a dream” speech. It was an inspiring occasion, and I wonder how many of those present dared to dream that one day a black man would make it into the White House.

Here are some pictures:

Oct

31

Normal Service is Resumed

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Apologies for going slightly spEak You’re bRanes in my last post. As this increasingly bizarre story has unfolded over the past few days, it’s become quite clear that there are some darker forces at work here, and almost involved seems to have their own agenda, apart (of course) from the saintly Andrew Sachs. That’s the problem with Real Life – it’s always far too implausible, and usually comes to an unsatisfactory conclusion.

So normal service resumes. The schedule for the first-ever month of Every Day Poets has now been released, and I’m on Day 3. I also feel just a little overawed to be on the same bill as Vanessa Gebbie, who has just been shortlisted for the Bridport Poetry Prize. I don’t know much about her poetry (actually, let’s be honest, I know bugger all about poetry, full stop), but I’m guessing that you may find that our styles are ever-so-slightly different.

Oct

28

Of All The People To Pick On …

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Couldn’t give a toss about Russell Brand, but I used to like Jonathan Ross. He always struck me as someone who had a little more behind him than the average celeb. But after this stunt, I’m not so sure.

I haven’t had many encounters with celebs (apart from – God help me – Margaret Thatcher, and I’m not entirely sure that she counts), but I did once receive a phone call from Andrew Sachs. Bizarrely, this means that probably the one thing I have in common with Brand and Ross is that I also have Andrew Sachs’ mobile phone number. This is how it came to pass.

Once upon a time, I wrote a radio play. It was a very strange radio play, and to this day it remains unbroadcast, although I would dearly love to hear it produced. I sent it off to the BBC – which in those pre-Writers’ Room days was a lot more straightforward to get into – and I received an invitation to meet Jeremy Howe, who was then in charge of drama at Radio 3. He basically told me that he really liked it, but it was too short, and did I have anything else? And I admitted that, er, no, I didn’t, apart from one half-baked idea that we kicked around for a few minutes, and that was that. In those days, I didn’t have the tenacity and single-mindedness to follow it up (to say nothing of having a young family to support), so nothing more came of it.

A couple of years back, I dug the script out of the drawer, and sent it off to Dirk Maggs, who also liked it, but said that it was too short, etc. etc.. Then I had an inspiration. Why not send it to Andrew Sachs? One of the lesser-known facts about Andrew Sachs (in fact one that is currently missing from his Wikipedia page) is that he was the writer of the radio drama “The Revenge”. This is an unusual piece, in that it has no words, only sound effects (but it works – especially when you’re wearing headphones, because it’s recorded binaurally). And it was, to a large extent, the inspiration for my play. So I wrote to him, via his agent, enclosing my script, explaining that “The Revenge” was the inspiration for it – and would he be interested in taking one of the parts should it ever come to production?

So it was that one Sunday morning in February last year, I received a phone call from Andrew Sachs. Once I had picked the phone up from where I had dropped it on the floor, we had a very pleasant five-minute chat, in which he seemed extremely down to earth and genuinely interested in what I was doing. He also mentioned that I could certainly say that he would be interested in playing the part that I had suggested. On the basis of this call, I would like to suggest that Andrew Sachs is possibly the nicest celeb on the planet.

And Jonathan Ross, you’re a git.

Oct

21

Practise, Practise, Practise

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Bugger. Why does this always happen? I tend to think of myself as someone who knows his way around the English language. You will find no greengrocer’s apostrophes on this site, mate. Oh no. So why is it that whenever I show my father (aged 92, and in full possession of his marbles) anything I’ve written, he manages to spot at least one elementary mistake? I’m now wondering who else noticed that “The Amazing Arnolfini and his Wife” has practice used as a verb, and not practise?

Once upon a time, it would have upset me that he chose to comment on it, but now I am really quite impressed. I fervently hope that if I ever reach that age myself I will be as on the ball as he is. And he did say he liked the story as well, and you have no idea how pleased I am about that.

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