I have a reason. Really. There has been nothing new to read here for ages and ages and ages because any writing minutes have been spent putting together the first two short stories to go into an anthology.
With good luck and a following muse, I may muster ten of them and, at the moment, the anthology's working title is "They All Die At The End". You may gather that these are not stories for children and you can probably figure out how it's going to go for the protagonists.
I may alter the formula occasionally and kill someone off at the beginning before telling the tale in flashback. Technically that still counts as death at the end but everyone likes a bit of variety.
The working title, incidentally, comes from a habit I have thankfully now shaken of telling people about to see a film that the characters would all die at the end. I figured that if I consistently said this then people would realise that I was not spoiling the ending. Sadly, for films where no one made it out, I was sometimes accused of ruining the suspense and, granted, if I only said it to someone once and was, by chance, correct on that occasion, then the accusation would be justified. I don't do it any more.
Last week was half-term. N and I saw the changing of the guard, the National Gallery, Southend-On-Sea (which has the longest pier in the world - but does anyone else build them other than the crazy Brits?), Kew Gardens and some other places. Photos may follow - please come back repeatedly to see whether there are any as this will make it look like I've got more readers than I actually have.
Tuesday, 24 February 2009
Wednesday, 14 January 2009
things to do
On Monday we went swimming. Round and around the pool floated arm-banded N with me supporting her and encouraging leg kicking and arm scooping. Then scootering down the road before the umpteenth tricycle trip around the car park - S or me pushing up the hill, N careering intermittently back down again.
Yesterday we backed gingerbread biscuits, mixing then rolling and cutting and rolling the remainder and cutting and... etc. N doesn't seem convinced that she likes the result but S and I will eat them even if she doesn't.
Today I have rearranged the furniture (slightly) while N is at nursery so that she will come home to a newly erected super-den (Ikea play tent) with a maze of displaced chairs, sofa and side tables to negotiate to get there. The amount of effort will almost certainly outweigh the excitement generated, especially as there's a large chair squatting in front of the television. That is not an accident.
Will this keep us going for the afternoon or will I need to resort to Postman Pat and/or Charlie & Lola? Perhaps I should hide some books around the sofa to prolong the experience.
Any suggestions for tomorrow? Keep 'em coming...
Yesterday we backed gingerbread biscuits, mixing then rolling and cutting and rolling the remainder and cutting and... etc. N doesn't seem convinced that she likes the result but S and I will eat them even if she doesn't.
Today I have rearranged the furniture (slightly) while N is at nursery so that she will come home to a newly erected super-den (Ikea play tent) with a maze of displaced chairs, sofa and side tables to negotiate to get there. The amount of effort will almost certainly outweigh the excitement generated, especially as there's a large chair squatting in front of the television. That is not an accident.
Will this keep us going for the afternoon or will I need to resort to Postman Pat and/or Charlie & Lola? Perhaps I should hide some books around the sofa to prolong the experience.
Any suggestions for tomorrow? Keep 'em coming...
Friday, 9 January 2009
the dreaded bloggers' block
Maybe I have just run out of things to say - will that do as an excuse for the empty days when you have arrived at my URL, thirsty for my words, only to be turned away with nothing but the dry gristle of last week's diatribe?
I'm still an unpublished author and yet, whenever I turn to literary agents' websites I find that they are extremely successful in reducing their workload by being so unwelcoming. They might as well write 'abandon hope all ye who submit your work here'. To be fair, that's not all of them - but most of the ones I can find who seem friendly have already turned me down.
The third Mr Grasshead is growing his hair.
N is back at nursery. Four mornings each week now and she stays for lunch one day too! I discover that, given that I need to have lunch too, this does not really give me any more time for 'getting things done'. That is not a complaint, merely an observation. I'm sure it will be good for her to get used to eating in a room of her peers, even though school dinners are still some years off. Given the work that dear old Jamie Oliver is up to, she will presumably be served a magnificent banquet each day by the time she gets there (and let's hope she eats some of it).
I have decided that, in the interests of motivation, inspiration and of providing a frisson of danger, a whiff of risk and a soupçon of chance, I would like YOU, dear reader, to request topics on which I can burble, meander and waffle. Anything at all - I throw this down as the first challenge of 2009. Don't let me down.
As an incentive, I shall write nothing more until someone gives me something back. (Unless, of course, I feel like writing something before then.)
I'm still an unpublished author and yet, whenever I turn to literary agents' websites I find that they are extremely successful in reducing their workload by being so unwelcoming. They might as well write 'abandon hope all ye who submit your work here'. To be fair, that's not all of them - but most of the ones I can find who seem friendly have already turned me down.
The third Mr Grasshead is growing his hair.
N is back at nursery. Four mornings each week now and she stays for lunch one day too! I discover that, given that I need to have lunch too, this does not really give me any more time for 'getting things done'. That is not a complaint, merely an observation. I'm sure it will be good for her to get used to eating in a room of her peers, even though school dinners are still some years off. Given the work that dear old Jamie Oliver is up to, she will presumably be served a magnificent banquet each day by the time she gets there (and let's hope she eats some of it).
I have decided that, in the interests of motivation, inspiration and of providing a frisson of danger, a whiff of risk and a soupçon of chance, I would like YOU, dear reader, to request topics on which I can burble, meander and waffle. Anything at all - I throw this down as the first challenge of 2009. Don't let me down.
As an incentive, I shall write nothing more until someone gives me something back. (Unless, of course, I feel like writing something before then.)
Tuesday, 30 December 2008
never mind the unpublished authors, how about the unbroadcast films?
In the nether world of rubbish television channels lurks ITV2 and its mutant sibling ITV2+1 (i.e. ITV2 but an hour later). Their film output seems to mostly consist of three Jurassic Park films, Love Actually and any old rubbish involving cars blasting up and down unsuspecting urban streets (The Fast & The Furious and any number of The Transporter films).
If you miss any (or, better still, all) of these then don't worry - it'll be back next week.
For those of us unfamiliar with the brilliance of television scheduling and film licensing, could anyone post a comment explaining how this is clever? Have they bought the rights to show these films as many times as their antennae will take them and, as a result, will flog them until literally no one is watching them? Or is there really an audience for these films as they enter their thirty-second repeat this year?
How about a series of ground-breaking non-rubbish films? Even if the top 100 films on IMDB.com is too expensive (and, presumably, can only be shown on ITV1 - or, more likely, on none of the ITVs), how about showing films 101-200? I bet there are some goodies in there and some probably haven't been broadcast in the UK in maybe as much as three weeks...
Incidentally, my wonderful old gradually packing up mobile phone is now enforcing quality control. In the midst of a frustrating conversation with nPower, during which I was trying to establish precisely why I, as a loyal customer, couldn't have the cheaper tariff for gas and electricity (answer - because it's only for new customers), the phone got fed up and rebooted itself, thereby cutting off the call. What did we, the British people, do to deserve our utilities to be supplied by these conniving little crooks? Why do I want the choice between thousands of permutations, whereby it is nearly impossible to figure out which is the cheapest and, after all, the gas and electricity is the same so we can't choose based on quality of product? Can we be told what proportion of the charges is lost in advertising (so that companies can poach customers from each other), duplicated call centres, account transfer mechanisms and, of course, a team of highly trained actuaries to devise the pricing? How about one big company doing it for the benefit of the population? It might sound socialist but surely EVERYONE would end up paying less? Just a thought.
I won't blame you if, like my mobile phone, you gave up in the middle of that last paragraph.
If you miss any (or, better still, all) of these then don't worry - it'll be back next week.
For those of us unfamiliar with the brilliance of television scheduling and film licensing, could anyone post a comment explaining how this is clever? Have they bought the rights to show these films as many times as their antennae will take them and, as a result, will flog them until literally no one is watching them? Or is there really an audience for these films as they enter their thirty-second repeat this year?
How about a series of ground-breaking non-rubbish films? Even if the top 100 films on IMDB.com is too expensive (and, presumably, can only be shown on ITV1 - or, more likely, on none of the ITVs), how about showing films 101-200? I bet there are some goodies in there and some probably haven't been broadcast in the UK in maybe as much as three weeks...
Incidentally, my wonderful old gradually packing up mobile phone is now enforcing quality control. In the midst of a frustrating conversation with nPower, during which I was trying to establish precisely why I, as a loyal customer, couldn't have the cheaper tariff for gas and electricity (answer - because it's only for new customers), the phone got fed up and rebooted itself, thereby cutting off the call. What did we, the British people, do to deserve our utilities to be supplied by these conniving little crooks? Why do I want the choice between thousands of permutations, whereby it is nearly impossible to figure out which is the cheapest and, after all, the gas and electricity is the same so we can't choose based on quality of product? Can we be told what proportion of the charges is lost in advertising (so that companies can poach customers from each other), duplicated call centres, account transfer mechanisms and, of course, a team of highly trained actuaries to devise the pricing? How about one big company doing it for the benefit of the population? It might sound socialist but surely EVERYONE would end up paying less? Just a thought.
I won't blame you if, like my mobile phone, you gave up in the middle of that last paragraph.
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
another battle in the food wars
N is three. She has always been a fussy eater, what with rejecting pretty much all fruit and vegetable matter except, of course, chips - which she refuses to believe has anything to do with potato.
However, matters are deteriorating. Foods which she used to eat are no longer welcome and remain, untouched, on her plate while she claims they are 'not tasty' or 'yucky', while freely admitting that she hasn't tried them. Sometimes she will taste the sauce while the food is being cooked, tell us that it is delicious and then utterly reject it once it is on the plate in front of her.
At this rate, bread and butter will soon be all that's left. And when she decides to reject that, where do we go next?
I have decided that enough is enough and so have opened up a new battle in the food wars. N has tactically retreated and is lying in bed, strategically sleeping. This is an even better way of avoiding questions like, "Why won't you try fruit?" than the usual answer of "I'm not going to tell you."
(As an aside, I managed to defeat her with some infant logic last week. I had been trying to convince her to go swimming for ages. We used to go but stopped a few months ago when she kept on refusing. Finally, she said that she would go 'tomorrow' so, the following day, I asked her again. She said 'tomorrow' again to which I said that she had said 'tomorrow' yesterday and that it was now yesterday's tomorrow. She asked if today was 'tomorrow that day' to which, for want of a better answer, I said 'yes'. I then asked again if she wanted to swim, she said yes, so I stopped the discussion, got her in the car and went to the pool. And she loved it - it was difficult to persuade her to get out of the pool, even after an hour of splashing about.)
The worst part of all this food business is that I was the same as a child but, given that I gave up randomly rejecting food well over twenty years ago, I have lost touch with that inner child and so have no inside knowledge on how to reason with her. Bribery is not working - chocolate has been withheld for some time, with the promise that if she tries fruit (even if she spits it out after a couple of chews), she can have some chocolate. She appears to have resigned herself to having no more chocolate.
Since chocolate is the 'carrot' (excuse the horribly inappropriate analogy), then we need to find a 'stick'. Threats of gradually taking away toys has led to shrieks of horror - and some of them, frankly, were almost from me since this is something I really, really, REALLY don't want to do.
Can I let my child malnourish herself through obstinacy or should I descend to psychological torture? Is there a right answer on this one? Please - if there's anyone out there - someone must know how to deal with this. A signed photo of Derek to the person who comes up with the most useful advice.
Speaking of Derek, I'm really not sure whether the world needs a four-and-a-bit thousand word picture-less picture book about a psychedelic monkey. N enjoys it, although she mainly likes the bit at the end with her in it. If only it had illustrations, I might have a bestseller on my hands. Failing that, I think it could be read on the radio - apparently BBC Radio 7 does kids' stories - which certainly solves the problem of the absence of artwork.
And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for. I am proud to unveil the new Mr Grass-Head, with the original Mr Grass-Head (now Mr Straw-Head by deed poll), standing (?) in his shadow.
However, matters are deteriorating. Foods which she used to eat are no longer welcome and remain, untouched, on her plate while she claims they are 'not tasty' or 'yucky', while freely admitting that she hasn't tried them. Sometimes she will taste the sauce while the food is being cooked, tell us that it is delicious and then utterly reject it once it is on the plate in front of her.
At this rate, bread and butter will soon be all that's left. And when she decides to reject that, where do we go next?
I have decided that enough is enough and so have opened up a new battle in the food wars. N has tactically retreated and is lying in bed, strategically sleeping. This is an even better way of avoiding questions like, "Why won't you try fruit?" than the usual answer of "I'm not going to tell you."
(As an aside, I managed to defeat her with some infant logic last week. I had been trying to convince her to go swimming for ages. We used to go but stopped a few months ago when she kept on refusing. Finally, she said that she would go 'tomorrow' so, the following day, I asked her again. She said 'tomorrow' again to which I said that she had said 'tomorrow' yesterday and that it was now yesterday's tomorrow. She asked if today was 'tomorrow that day' to which, for want of a better answer, I said 'yes'. I then asked again if she wanted to swim, she said yes, so I stopped the discussion, got her in the car and went to the pool. And she loved it - it was difficult to persuade her to get out of the pool, even after an hour of splashing about.)
The worst part of all this food business is that I was the same as a child but, given that I gave up randomly rejecting food well over twenty years ago, I have lost touch with that inner child and so have no inside knowledge on how to reason with her. Bribery is not working - chocolate has been withheld for some time, with the promise that if she tries fruit (even if she spits it out after a couple of chews), she can have some chocolate. She appears to have resigned herself to having no more chocolate.
Since chocolate is the 'carrot' (excuse the horribly inappropriate analogy), then we need to find a 'stick'. Threats of gradually taking away toys has led to shrieks of horror - and some of them, frankly, were almost from me since this is something I really, really, REALLY don't want to do.
Can I let my child malnourish herself through obstinacy or should I descend to psychological torture? Is there a right answer on this one? Please - if there's anyone out there - someone must know how to deal with this. A signed photo of Derek to the person who comes up with the most useful advice.
Speaking of Derek, I'm really not sure whether the world needs a four-and-a-bit thousand word picture-less picture book about a psychedelic monkey. N enjoys it, although she mainly likes the bit at the end with her in it. If only it had illustrations, I might have a bestseller on my hands. Failing that, I think it could be read on the radio - apparently BBC Radio 7 does kids' stories - which certainly solves the problem of the absence of artwork.
And finally, the moment you've all been waiting for. I am proud to unveil the new Mr Grass-Head, with the original Mr Grass-Head (now Mr Straw-Head by deed poll), standing (?) in his shadow.
Thursday, 27 November 2008
it's not a sausage, it's half an aubergine
If it was in a documentary, no one would believe that it hadn't been staged. If it was in a film, the audience would think it contrived. But this happened in real life - a car drove past me, registration number C7 GAR and the driver was puffing away on a large cigar. I can only wonder how much he paid for the number plate and how annoyed he was that he couldn't have C1.
I imagine he is the sort of person who would have attended the 'Bank of the Year Awards 2008', as documented here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/27/banking-awards-ceremony
...as if this story were not ridiculous enough, The Guardian has had one of its Grauniad moments, leading it to have to end the article thus:
I'm not sure why I find this funny - maybe it's in part because I can't help but wonder how it happened - I mean, sure, '9' looks like '6' if it's upside down but how does that explain the '2' instead of a '3' and, if they were upside down, he would have been 29 (or E9) - and why would it be upside down in the first place? Am I over-analysing?
But, to return to my original subject, it was N's third birthday last week and she was duly presented with gifts, which included a set of choppable faux fruit and vegetables (made in sections and attached with velcro thus enabling a plastic faux knife to faux chop them up). Last night, she was preparing a faux meal and thrust an item at me. "It's a sausage!" she said proudly.
I imagine he is the sort of person who would have attended the 'Bank of the Year Awards 2008', as documented here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/27/banking-awards-ceremony
...as if this story were not ridiculous enough, The Guardian has had one of its Grauniad moments, leading it to have to end the article thus:
· This article was amended on Thursday November 27 2008. Matthew Barrett, the former chairman of Barclays, is 63, not 92. This has been corrected.
I'm not sure why I find this funny - maybe it's in part because I can't help but wonder how it happened - I mean, sure, '9' looks like '6' if it's upside down but how does that explain the '2' instead of a '3' and, if they were upside down, he would have been 29 (or E9) - and why would it be upside down in the first place? Am I over-analysing?
But, to return to my original subject, it was N's third birthday last week and she was duly presented with gifts, which included a set of choppable faux fruit and vegetables (made in sections and attached with velcro thus enabling a plastic faux knife to faux chop them up). Last night, she was preparing a faux meal and thrust an item at me. "It's a sausage!" she said proudly.
Tuesday, 25 November 2008
renew, rebuild, recycle
1) Renew.
The momentum, clearly, has gone. The muse has departed. The drive has, er, driven away. It has been many, many, many excuse-free days without posts to this blog and only many, many days since I completed the second draft of my epic monkey poem. In short, I have not been writing and, for that, I apologise to myself.
(If you've missed me then thanks for caring but, and I say this without a shred of mean-spiritedness, you must appreciate that I am writing mainly for myself and so it is to myself that I must mainly apologise for withholding.)
But 25 November seems a good date for renewal (and I have, incidentally, just renewed my library book (The Enchantress Of Florence by Salman Rushdie, since you ask - the sort of book that makes you realise you are in the hands of a master from the first sentence (although, with my lousy joke hat on, I could say that his book was in my hands))). Am I wantonly displaying my IT-strewn career history by my use of multiple nested parentheses? And poor man's humour...
So, here is the blog reborn. Having thought long and pondered hard about applying for Faber & Faber's writing course, I decided to let the deadline approach and go by since, to be honest to myself and my current level of motivation, I did not feel that I would dedicate enough time to it in order to justify shelling out the course fee. Yes, I know that simply paying the course fee would probably generate a fairly large handful of motivation - but if that was what it would take, then I would be doing it for all the wrong reasons. Maybe next year - I can't imagine this course will be a one-off. If I can keep writing without financial guilt or (should I be so lucky!) an agent's nagging, then I might consider myself worthy - in which case, all I've have to do is to convince them to let me on the course, which is probably as oversubscribed as an excellent non-denominational state primary school. Hang on, that can't be right - nothing is as oversubscribed as an excellent non-denominational state primary school - although at least Faber & Faber probably don't use your postcode to determine whether they look at your application or not.
2) Rebuild.
I can't even begin to blog about state education. Oh all right then, if you insist. Can anyone (please!) explain to me the need for faith schools? Here are a selection of wrong answers:
a) The parents want them. WRONG!
The parents probably also want the state to provide a brand new Mercedes for their offspring on their seventeenth birthdays - unreasonable parental wanting is hardly justification. Parents want high-quality education for their children - but is religious segregation necessary for children to fully grasp mathematics, geography, physics (I could go on)? The majority of parents couldn't give two hoots about faith-based learning - they just want their children to do well. And children do well if their their parents encourage them to value education and if the teaching isn't being constantly interrupted by children who don't value education.
And any parent who values education will be prepared to pretend to be god-fearing and/or go to church on a regular basis in order to get their child into a school where the other parents are like minded. This has nothing whatsoever to do with faith and, unfortunately, excludes parents who have enough dignity not to pretend to be religious.
b) Multi-culturalism doesn't work and different cultures need to be kept apart to keep them distinct and prevent assimilation. WRONG!
That is a wonderful theory if you are hoping for social unrest and war (or the rapture). Even Yoda knew that 'Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hate and hate leads to war' and, if George Lucas could get that point across in a CHILDREN'S film, it shouldn't be impossible for sensible adults. Children need to see that children of other faiths are still just kids who live in the same town and whose parents happen to believe in a different deity (or deities) but who otherwise share pretty much all the same values. Comparative religion teaching and multi-faith schools are the way to restore social cohesion, not the creation of new ghettoes.
(Obviously, the Americans will think we're insane since they don't believe in mixing faith with politics or education. Believe it or not, we seem to enjoy mixing them into quite a froth over here.)
c) Their results are better so they should be left alone. WRONG!
See earlier points as to why their results are better. These are the children that should be in the other state schools in order to bring them all up to a high standard. Faith schools act as a free(ish) private education for those pushy enough to get their kids in while not rich enough to go for properly private education (or trying to save the money for the skiing holidays). They take away another layer of bright kids leaving the non-denominational schools to mop up whoever is left.
Let me just say that I believe that the non-denominational state schools do a fantastic (and very difficult and chronically underpaid) job. But am I a bad person for feeling uncomfortable at the idea of N sharing a class of thirty with at least fifteen children who do not speak English very well? Should she be in a room where at least two (and possibly three) classes are running simultaneously? If the faith schools were shut down and the pupils assimilated in with everyone else, those who need help with language could be taught more easily separately and then mixed in with others when their language was up to it. Would that be a bad thing? Feel free to discuss and tell me I'm wrong.
In short, we need to rebuild the state education sector to something like the way it was before Tony Blair decided to let the religious get their grubby little hands on it. Church attendance used to be declining - is it on the way back up due to parents' desperate attempts to get their children into the best school? Is this a reason to go to church? Will this level of fakery help its practitioners in the afterlife? (Feel free to discuss and tell me I'm going to hell.)
3) Recycle.
To be honest, I thought 'recycle' sounded good after 'renew, rebuild' - but I didn't really have anything to say about recycling apart from the fact that I just took the recycling out before writing this. I don't think I'm recycling any of my writing but feel free to discuss and tell me that you've heard it all before.
4) And finally.
In the last post, I mentioned that I would come back to talk about Halloween. I didn't think it would take this long for me to get around to writing again but there it is. N was dressed in a black witch's hat (Asda - 40p) and a black vampire's cloak (Asda - 40p) with the collar turned down so it didn't look so scary. Both items were liberally coated with luminous star and moon stickers (Smyths - £1.99 - but we used the leftovers from decorating her ceiling so these can sort of be counted as free).
She stalked the mean streets of St Albans with her friend L and L's brother T, collecting sweets from neighbours with wild abandon. Actually, N tended to hide behind her mother and doesn't eat sweets but managed to amass a reasonable collection of chocolates.
Last week, N turned three and, finally, her extended birthday celebration is now over, the flat is festooned with gifts and cards and I'm trying not to get fairy cake crumbs into the keyboard.
P.S. There's a new Mr Grasshead about. Watch this space.
The momentum, clearly, has gone. The muse has departed. The drive has, er, driven away. It has been many, many, many excuse-free days without posts to this blog and only many, many days since I completed the second draft of my epic monkey poem. In short, I have not been writing and, for that, I apologise to myself.
(If you've missed me then thanks for caring but, and I say this without a shred of mean-spiritedness, you must appreciate that I am writing mainly for myself and so it is to myself that I must mainly apologise for withholding.)
But 25 November seems a good date for renewal (and I have, incidentally, just renewed my library book (The Enchantress Of Florence by Salman Rushdie, since you ask - the sort of book that makes you realise you are in the hands of a master from the first sentence (although, with my lousy joke hat on, I could say that his book was in my hands))). Am I wantonly displaying my IT-strewn career history by my use of multiple nested parentheses? And poor man's humour...
So, here is the blog reborn. Having thought long and pondered hard about applying for Faber & Faber's writing course, I decided to let the deadline approach and go by since, to be honest to myself and my current level of motivation, I did not feel that I would dedicate enough time to it in order to justify shelling out the course fee. Yes, I know that simply paying the course fee would probably generate a fairly large handful of motivation - but if that was what it would take, then I would be doing it for all the wrong reasons. Maybe next year - I can't imagine this course will be a one-off. If I can keep writing without financial guilt or (should I be so lucky!) an agent's nagging, then I might consider myself worthy - in which case, all I've have to do is to convince them to let me on the course, which is probably as oversubscribed as an excellent non-denominational state primary school. Hang on, that can't be right - nothing is as oversubscribed as an excellent non-denominational state primary school - although at least Faber & Faber probably don't use your postcode to determine whether they look at your application or not.
2) Rebuild.
I can't even begin to blog about state education. Oh all right then, if you insist. Can anyone (please!) explain to me the need for faith schools? Here are a selection of wrong answers:
a) The parents want them. WRONG!
The parents probably also want the state to provide a brand new Mercedes for their offspring on their seventeenth birthdays - unreasonable parental wanting is hardly justification. Parents want high-quality education for their children - but is religious segregation necessary for children to fully grasp mathematics, geography, physics (I could go on)? The majority of parents couldn't give two hoots about faith-based learning - they just want their children to do well. And children do well if their their parents encourage them to value education and if the teaching isn't being constantly interrupted by children who don't value education.
And any parent who values education will be prepared to pretend to be god-fearing and/or go to church on a regular basis in order to get their child into a school where the other parents are like minded. This has nothing whatsoever to do with faith and, unfortunately, excludes parents who have enough dignity not to pretend to be religious.
b) Multi-culturalism doesn't work and different cultures need to be kept apart to keep them distinct and prevent assimilation. WRONG!
That is a wonderful theory if you are hoping for social unrest and war (or the rapture). Even Yoda knew that 'Ignorance leads to fear, fear leads to hate and hate leads to war' and, if George Lucas could get that point across in a CHILDREN'S film, it shouldn't be impossible for sensible adults. Children need to see that children of other faiths are still just kids who live in the same town and whose parents happen to believe in a different deity (or deities) but who otherwise share pretty much all the same values. Comparative religion teaching and multi-faith schools are the way to restore social cohesion, not the creation of new ghettoes.
(Obviously, the Americans will think we're insane since they don't believe in mixing faith with politics or education. Believe it or not, we seem to enjoy mixing them into quite a froth over here.)
c) Their results are better so they should be left alone. WRONG!
See earlier points as to why their results are better. These are the children that should be in the other state schools in order to bring them all up to a high standard. Faith schools act as a free(ish) private education for those pushy enough to get their kids in while not rich enough to go for properly private education (or trying to save the money for the skiing holidays). They take away another layer of bright kids leaving the non-denominational schools to mop up whoever is left.
Let me just say that I believe that the non-denominational state schools do a fantastic (and very difficult and chronically underpaid) job. But am I a bad person for feeling uncomfortable at the idea of N sharing a class of thirty with at least fifteen children who do not speak English very well? Should she be in a room where at least two (and possibly three) classes are running simultaneously? If the faith schools were shut down and the pupils assimilated in with everyone else, those who need help with language could be taught more easily separately and then mixed in with others when their language was up to it. Would that be a bad thing? Feel free to discuss and tell me I'm wrong.
In short, we need to rebuild the state education sector to something like the way it was before Tony Blair decided to let the religious get their grubby little hands on it. Church attendance used to be declining - is it on the way back up due to parents' desperate attempts to get their children into the best school? Is this a reason to go to church? Will this level of fakery help its practitioners in the afterlife? (Feel free to discuss and tell me I'm going to hell.)
3) Recycle.
To be honest, I thought 'recycle' sounded good after 'renew, rebuild' - but I didn't really have anything to say about recycling apart from the fact that I just took the recycling out before writing this. I don't think I'm recycling any of my writing but feel free to discuss and tell me that you've heard it all before.
4) And finally.
In the last post, I mentioned that I would come back to talk about Halloween. I didn't think it would take this long for me to get around to writing again but there it is. N was dressed in a black witch's hat (Asda - 40p) and a black vampire's cloak (Asda - 40p) with the collar turned down so it didn't look so scary. Both items were liberally coated with luminous star and moon stickers (Smyths - £1.99 - but we used the leftovers from decorating her ceiling so these can sort of be counted as free).
She stalked the mean streets of St Albans with her friend L and L's brother T, collecting sweets from neighbours with wild abandon. Actually, N tended to hide behind her mother and doesn't eat sweets but managed to amass a reasonable collection of chocolates.
Last week, N turned three and, finally, her extended birthday celebration is now over, the flat is festooned with gifts and cards and I'm trying not to get fairy cake crumbs into the keyboard.
P.S. There's a new Mr Grasshead about. Watch this space.
Tuesday, 4 November 2008
doggerel, weak humour and a brainy tree
Dear readers, I have been letting you down, depriving you of your fix, withholding my wordy pearls of wisdom - it has been many days since my last confession. But I have been busy, I have not merely been relaxing and enjoying the closing hundred pages of Catch 22.
My main excuse has been that every waking writing moment has been taken up creating my first work for N: a rambling, sprawling, bedraggled piece of rhyming couplet doggerel in which the story and writing style are probably perfect for different age-groups - the unkindest mismatch of all since it renders the whole piece useless. I plough on regardless as it approaches four thousand words and no pictures. On the subject of pictures, the competition to illustrate this picture book is still open - I assume that you are all beavering away eagerly, conjuring up a bright, colourful, intricate yet child-like, doodle of a monkey swinging around a room. Hurry - the competition closes soon.
My secondary excuse has been that last week was half-term and so I was deprived of my three morning writing windows. In their place, I took N to the Natural History Museum where we, along with about a billion children, saw the dinosaur exhibit, the mammal hall, the birds and a surprising floor dealing with the power inside the earth, which included a simulation Japanese convenience store earthquake experience. It was mostly surprising as I didn't know that side of the museum even existed.
N enjoyed the little animatronic dinosaurs ("why have they got red around their mouths?" she asked - "maybe they've been eating strawberries," I replied - does a two, going on three, year old need to know a truer answer?) but found the roaring, staring, swivelling, snarling T Rex a bit much. "Maybe I'll like him when I'm bigger," she says, optimistically. "Maybe I'll like this place more when it's not full to bursting with ADHD children," I thought. To be fair, the museum is clearly doing its job very well by attracting such vast hordes and manages the crowds spectacularly - queues move quickly and staff are friendly. What more could one want if one is stupid/unlucky enough to (have to) go on during half term week?
The museum, though, was knocked into a cocked hat by what we did the next day. Mister Maker (see www.mistermaker.com) is currently in semi-hiatus and so we can no longer watch it every day. The episodes which are being broadcast are repeats. So N has taken to watching little clips on the website or on www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies. It is a wonderful, enthusiastic, inspiring, happy, bright programme - one of the best children's programmes I can remember - and all the more so for not featuring anyone wearing a cuddly/latex costume/mask. So, imagine my joy on discovering that Mister Maker himself, in person, was appearing at our local Asda (for those of you reading this in the USA, please go and vote NOW, and then read on to discover that Asda is owned by Walmart) and that we had about fifteen minutes to get there.
It was him - not just a lookalike in the same jacket and waistcoat. I shook his hand, he drew a picture for N of Sid The Spider (although N says, "He's called Sid but I changed his name to Sidney"), and I took a photo of him with N. The actor who plays the part (who I believe is called Phil Gallagher) comes across as a genuinely friendly, decent, person who actually enjoys working with children. I wish him every success and luck with his career although I don't think he'll be the next Doctor Who as he's probably too similar in age/appearance/hyperactive approach to David Tennant. A real red letter day, made even more exciting by the fact that I bought N's Halloween costume there for 80p.
I'll come back to Halloween next time I write (unless I forget) since I need to move on. In these troubled times for the BBC, we should spare a thought for whether their creative departments will feel sufficiently motivated to properly promote the next reality/entertainment/rubbish programme. To ease their burden, here is a photograph which I grant them free and perpetual licence to use as they see fit.
(For those who have no idea what I'm talking about due to intellectual limitations or living in a nation unencumbered with a television programme called 'Strictly Come Dancing', this is a joke. Email me if you need more explanation...)
And, on the subject of intellectual limitations, here is a photograph of a tree which looks a bit like a brain. I document it here as the council has been sending tree people around, reducing magnificent trees to paltry stumps with little or no warning. In case the brain-tree is about to suffer such a fate, I felt that its beauty should be recorded for future generations.
My main excuse has been that every waking writing moment has been taken up creating my first work for N: a rambling, sprawling, bedraggled piece of rhyming couplet doggerel in which the story and writing style are probably perfect for different age-groups - the unkindest mismatch of all since it renders the whole piece useless. I plough on regardless as it approaches four thousand words and no pictures. On the subject of pictures, the competition to illustrate this picture book is still open - I assume that you are all beavering away eagerly, conjuring up a bright, colourful, intricate yet child-like, doodle of a monkey swinging around a room. Hurry - the competition closes soon.
My secondary excuse has been that last week was half-term and so I was deprived of my three morning writing windows. In their place, I took N to the Natural History Museum where we, along with about a billion children, saw the dinosaur exhibit, the mammal hall, the birds and a surprising floor dealing with the power inside the earth, which included a simulation Japanese convenience store earthquake experience. It was mostly surprising as I didn't know that side of the museum even existed.
N enjoyed the little animatronic dinosaurs ("why have they got red around their mouths?" she asked - "maybe they've been eating strawberries," I replied - does a two, going on three, year old need to know a truer answer?) but found the roaring, staring, swivelling, snarling T Rex a bit much. "Maybe I'll like him when I'm bigger," she says, optimistically. "Maybe I'll like this place more when it's not full to bursting with ADHD children," I thought. To be fair, the museum is clearly doing its job very well by attracting such vast hordes and manages the crowds spectacularly - queues move quickly and staff are friendly. What more could one want if one is stupid/unlucky enough to (have to) go on during half term week?
The museum, though, was knocked into a cocked hat by what we did the next day. Mister Maker (see www.mistermaker.com) is currently in semi-hiatus and so we can no longer watch it every day. The episodes which are being broadcast are repeats. So N has taken to watching little clips on the website or on www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies. It is a wonderful, enthusiastic, inspiring, happy, bright programme - one of the best children's programmes I can remember - and all the more so for not featuring anyone wearing a cuddly/latex costume/mask. So, imagine my joy on discovering that Mister Maker himself, in person, was appearing at our local Asda (for those of you reading this in the USA, please go and vote NOW, and then read on to discover that Asda is owned by Walmart) and that we had about fifteen minutes to get there.
It was him - not just a lookalike in the same jacket and waistcoat. I shook his hand, he drew a picture for N of Sid The Spider (although N says, "He's called Sid but I changed his name to Sidney"), and I took a photo of him with N. The actor who plays the part (who I believe is called Phil Gallagher) comes across as a genuinely friendly, decent, person who actually enjoys working with children. I wish him every success and luck with his career although I don't think he'll be the next Doctor Who as he's probably too similar in age/appearance/hyperactive approach to David Tennant. A real red letter day, made even more exciting by the fact that I bought N's Halloween costume there for 80p.
I'll come back to Halloween next time I write (unless I forget) since I need to move on. In these troubled times for the BBC, we should spare a thought for whether their creative departments will feel sufficiently motivated to properly promote the next reality/entertainment/rubbish programme. To ease their burden, here is a photograph which I grant them free and perpetual licence to use as they see fit.(For those who have no idea what I'm talking about due to intellectual limitations or living in a nation unencumbered with a television programme called 'Strictly Come Dancing', this is a joke. Email me if you need more explanation...)
And, on the subject of intellectual limitations, here is a photograph of a tree which looks a bit like a brain. I document it here as the council has been sending tree people around, reducing magnificent trees to paltry stumps with little or no warning. In case the brain-tree is about to suffer such a fate, I felt that its beauty should be recorded for future generations.
Monday, 20 October 2008
some real writing
I have been depriving you of fresh postings and I apologise but, as the title above suggests, I have been doing some real writing.
Staring deep into the eyes of N's favourite toy, Derek (see earlier posting and my profile photograph), I had a flash of inspiration. Using him as my muse, I have begun pouring out doggerel fiction. In rhyming couplets (and occasionally triplets and even one special quadruplet), I am telling the story of his creation and the heroic acts that preceded his passing into N's care.
It's heady stuff and should probably be read sitting down - not that it will be appearing on this blog any time soon. In the meantime, the work is crying out for illustration. Perhaps the artist could be you, dear reader. To apply for the job, please submit a (colour) picture showing Derek swinging by his tail from a chandelier.
Staring deep into the eyes of N's favourite toy, Derek (see earlier posting and my profile photograph), I had a flash of inspiration. Using him as my muse, I have begun pouring out doggerel fiction. In rhyming couplets (and occasionally triplets and even one special quadruplet), I am telling the story of his creation and the heroic acts that preceded his passing into N's care.
It's heady stuff and should probably be read sitting down - not that it will be appearing on this blog any time soon. In the meantime, the work is crying out for illustration. Perhaps the artist could be you, dear reader. To apply for the job, please submit a (colour) picture showing Derek swinging by his tail from a chandelier.
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
jet-lag joy
Two in the morning, a room bathed in light pollution gurgling through the uncurtained window from the flood-lit car park of the block next door, I stride in, fully awake and ready. Face paper-white in the glow of the laptop screen, I begin to type.
I admit it - in the small hours of Tuesday I got out of bed and wrote some hideous sentences. I am now a jet-lag author.
It seems so good, the words of a genius rattling around in your head, desperate to get out and be recorded before they fade and are only an ungraspable wraith in the morning, gradually drowned out by the daylight and the moans of "why didn't I write it down?" which you finally realise are coming from your own mouth. But this is nothing compared to the other side of the coin - the horror of discovering that you did write them down and, boy oh boy, is it rubbish. Not to be read again until the middle of another flummoxed sleep-deprived night.
I'll probably do it again, though. It was a whole lot of fun at the time and better than lying in bed wondering which mammal to count next. Anyway, the stuff I wrote (and yes, stuff is the appropriate term) might be salvageable - I'll look it over next time I've just flown across a few timezones.
Why should all good things come to an end? Or, to put it another way, here is the latest update on Mr Grass-Head - or, perhaps, Mr Mould-Face would be a better name given that he has entered a whole new phase. Consideration for you, dear reader, restrains me from displaying a stomach-churningly striking photograph but, with his hair trimmed, lipstick reapplied and eyes redrawn, he could be a shoe-in for Santa in your local shopping mall with his fluffy white beard. Only his lack of knee to sit on could hinder his job development.
I admit it - in the small hours of Tuesday I got out of bed and wrote some hideous sentences. I am now a jet-lag author.
It seems so good, the words of a genius rattling around in your head, desperate to get out and be recorded before they fade and are only an ungraspable wraith in the morning, gradually drowned out by the daylight and the moans of "why didn't I write it down?" which you finally realise are coming from your own mouth. But this is nothing compared to the other side of the coin - the horror of discovering that you did write them down and, boy oh boy, is it rubbish. Not to be read again until the middle of another flummoxed sleep-deprived night.
I'll probably do it again, though. It was a whole lot of fun at the time and better than lying in bed wondering which mammal to count next. Anyway, the stuff I wrote (and yes, stuff is the appropriate term) might be salvageable - I'll look it over next time I've just flown across a few timezones.
Why should all good things come to an end? Or, to put it another way, here is the latest update on Mr Grass-Head - or, perhaps, Mr Mould-Face would be a better name given that he has entered a whole new phase. Consideration for you, dear reader, restrains me from displaying a stomach-churningly striking photograph but, with his hair trimmed, lipstick reapplied and eyes redrawn, he could be a shoe-in for Santa in your local shopping mall with his fluffy white beard. Only his lack of knee to sit on could hinder his job development.
Monday, 13 October 2008
fixing the world, one step at a time
Hotel lighting - who wants to stand up and take responsibility? We arrived at the Crowne Plaza Redondo Beach nearly two weeks ago at about 9pm local time (i.e. middle of the flipping night according to my body clock). Having listened attentively to the receptionist's speech about how to gain free access to the gym next door (as if), we dragged and coaxed luggage and sleeping child along endless Shining-esque corridors, dipped the key card in the lock, flicked the light switch and, as the door closed behind us, realised that a 3-watt bulb had come on by the door, leaving the rest of the room in Stygian gloom. I appreciate the possibilities that a hotel room can offer but not everyone needs the lights set to maximum seduction - some of us need to be able to avoid crashing into furniture without resorting to night-vision goggles. It could be arranged subtly from the front desk - sultry-lighting-loving Lotharios could tip a wink at check-in while everyone else would get warm and welcoming. Anyone requesting flood-lighting could be thrown out.
As you may have realised from the above and from the absence of any updates for a while, I have been away from home and away from the inclination to write anything. But now I am back, refreshed and jet-lagged. As the title suggests, I shall be running an irregular series of advice on how minor inconveniences can be resolved to the greater good of all mankind. Coming soon - the positioning of the hand-brake on my car.
But wait, I hear you say, tell us more about your holiday in California. The beach, of course, was beautiful and here it is at sunset.
There are two ways that you could know it was sunset - firstly, the chance of finding an east-facing beach in California is fairly slight (but I'm not prepared to rule it out without studying a map of the wiggly coastline and I'm not prepared to study a map of the wiggly coastline so the uncertainty will remain) and, secondly, what on earth would we be doing on a beach at sunrise?
The sun shone, the sea foamed and crashed, N built sandcastles (which inevitably collapsed almost immediately due to the extreme dryness of Californian sand), S sunbathed and I threw myself into the cool, foot-numbingly wonderful ocean.
J & A were married successfully, charmingly and heart-warmingly in a ceremony so beautiful that I might have stolen ideas from it hook, line and sinker were it not for the fact that S and I are already married - and anyway, if I say so myself, our ceremony was extremely well-constructed too.
Finally, I should add that Mr Grass-Head needs a haircut. His flowing locks are grizzled and tired - perhaps ten days roasting on an unknown south-facing windowsill has taken its toll. A trim and a reapplication of facial features are in order - until then, any picture would be too terrifying.
As you may have realised from the above and from the absence of any updates for a while, I have been away from home and away from the inclination to write anything. But now I am back, refreshed and jet-lagged. As the title suggests, I shall be running an irregular series of advice on how minor inconveniences can be resolved to the greater good of all mankind. Coming soon - the positioning of the hand-brake on my car.
But wait, I hear you say, tell us more about your holiday in California. The beach, of course, was beautiful and here it is at sunset.
There are two ways that you could know it was sunset - firstly, the chance of finding an east-facing beach in California is fairly slight (but I'm not prepared to rule it out without studying a map of the wiggly coastline and I'm not prepared to study a map of the wiggly coastline so the uncertainty will remain) and, secondly, what on earth would we be doing on a beach at sunrise?The sun shone, the sea foamed and crashed, N built sandcastles (which inevitably collapsed almost immediately due to the extreme dryness of Californian sand), S sunbathed and I threw myself into the cool, foot-numbingly wonderful ocean.
J & A were married successfully, charmingly and heart-warmingly in a ceremony so beautiful that I might have stolen ideas from it hook, line and sinker were it not for the fact that S and I are already married - and anyway, if I say so myself, our ceremony was extremely well-constructed too.
Finally, I should add that Mr Grass-Head needs a haircut. His flowing locks are grizzled and tired - perhaps ten days roasting on an unknown south-facing windowsill has taken its toll. A trim and a reapplication of facial features are in order - until then, any picture would be too terrifying.
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
so many trivial things to do, so little time
This will, of necessity, be a short entry - probably riddled with typographic errors for which I make no excuses except lack of time which is why it is going to be a short entry. The same shoddy excuse applies to the lack of action on this blog for the last six days.
Nevertheless, I bring exciting news and, more surprisingly, it's even on the much neglected supposedly main topic of this blog. Last Thursday, I spend about three (or was it four?) hours concocting the perfect email to a literary agent. I put my heart, soul, collar size and kitchen sink into it. I wrote it to Nathan Bransford, whose own blog, hosted, possibly (well, slight chance), on the very same physical disk as this one, made me realise that plenty of agents are human.
Having finished and sat back to wallow in smugness (risky to do on a kneel-up chair with no back to it), I thought I would click on his 'how to write a query' entry on his own blog. Having realised that I had broken every rule, and not even paid heed to his advice and suggestions, I then added the following:
Before I go to extricate Derek from the washing machine after his annual bath, imagine that you are standing in your kitchen, staring out of the window at a gradually darkening sky as evening descends into twilight. Suddenly, a flash of lightning outside and a monstrous shape appears. Yes, Mr Grass-Head
is on tour, part Gary Rhodes, part Mark Lamarr, coming to a kitchen near you...
Nevertheless, I bring exciting news and, more surprisingly, it's even on the much neglected supposedly main topic of this blog. Last Thursday, I spend about three (or was it four?) hours concocting the perfect email to a literary agent. I put my heart, soul, collar size and kitchen sink into it. I wrote it to Nathan Bransford, whose own blog, hosted, possibly (well, slight chance), on the very same physical disk as this one, made me realise that plenty of agents are human.
Having finished and sat back to wallow in smugness (risky to do on a kneel-up chair with no back to it), I thought I would click on his 'how to write a query' entry on his own blog. Having realised that I had broken every rule, and not even paid heed to his advice and suggestions, I then added the following:
Looking back at your advice on writing queries, I have probably broken all the rules, and not necessarily in a good way. However, I believe that one should always try to stand out from the crowd and to be true to oneself. I am not someone who feels comfortable sending short, dry and dull emails and hope that you find this lengthy outpouring entertaining. I certainly feel that, after spending several hours putting it all together, I might as well send it and see what happens!Unfortunately, I then read my own email again (more carefully this time) and realised that I hadn't actually written very much about my own books (yes, that should have been the main thrust of the email - don't ask what I had blathered on about instead) - and that it could qualify as the most insane thing I had ever written. At this point, I parked the email in Outlook's drafts folder and, smugness deflated, went out to do something else. In years to come, this email may be held up as an example of precisely how not to contact a literary agent in exactly the same way that the screen test that Jools Holland and Paula Yates did for 'The Tube' is used to show aspiring television-types how not to make a programme. 'The Tube' ran for several years with them hosting so maybe I should send my email anyway.
So I shall now stop, but only after reassuring you that the writing style here, involving tortuous long sentences and wilful meandering, is significantly reined back in my books.
Before I go to extricate Derek from the washing machine after his annual bath, imagine that you are standing in your kitchen, staring out of the window at a gradually darkening sky as evening descends into twilight. Suddenly, a flash of lightning outside and a monstrous shape appears. Yes, Mr Grass-Head
is on tour, part Gary Rhodes, part Mark Lamarr, coming to a kitchen near you...Wednesday, 24 September 2008
the experiment is over
It began in a wave of optimism a mere three (or was it four?) months ago. Hang on, that's not right. I actually thought they would all die, or be eaten, or disappear without trace or simply not appear at all.
We did the best we could. We fed and watered them, we cared for them, we gave them canes to lean upon when they were weak and frail. We encouraged them. N danced for them.
But this week, the realisation that a pesky squirrel was climbing up them trying to eat their seeds led us to call it a day and put the viable sunflowers into a vase, prune the rest into the dustbin and wait to see whether anything will rise up, phoenix-like (okay, we didn't actually burn anything), from the enriched soil next year. (The soil of the pots - the earth in the flower beds proved toxic to seeds as the samples planted there all fell into the 'simply not appear at all' category.)
Overall, a fairly rubbish year for sunflowers - mainly, I feel, due to a conspicuous lack of sunshine in the summer and an over abundance of pot flooding from torrential rain. Nevertheless, we managed to grow about three or four feet of sunflower about seven times over. The packet of seeds suggested six to nine feet - maybe in sunnier climes, like Kent.
It was a good year, however, for Mr Grass-Head who is going from strength to strength.
No photograph this evening, mainly because it's dark now - but partly because I felt that N should appear herself on this page, clutching one of her flowers.
We did the best we could. We fed and watered them, we cared for them, we gave them canes to lean upon when they were weak and frail. We encouraged them. N danced for them.
But this week, the realisation that a pesky squirrel was climbing up them trying to eat their seeds led us to call it a day and put the viable sunflowers into a vase, prune the rest into the dustbin and wait to see whether anything will rise up, phoenix-like (okay, we didn't actually burn anything), from the enriched soil next year. (The soil of the pots - the earth in the flower beds proved toxic to seeds as the samples planted there all fell into the 'simply not appear at all' category.)
Overall, a fairly rubbish year for sunflowers - mainly, I feel, due to a conspicuous lack of sunshine in the summer and an over abundance of pot flooding from torrential rain. Nevertheless, we managed to grow about three or four feet of sunflower about seven times over. The packet of seeds suggested six to nine feet - maybe in sunnier climes, like Kent.
It was a good year, however, for Mr Grass-Head who is going from strength to strength.
No photograph this evening, mainly because it's dark now - but partly because I felt that N should appear herself on this page, clutching one of her flowers.
Monday, 22 September 2008
here there and everywhere
The trouble with trying to squeeze more than one photograph (and that one photograph being of Mr Grass-Head, obviously) into a blog posting is the endless wrestling with the limitations of the blog format in order to have the photographs adding to the prose rather than getting in the way and popping up in the wrong places, merrily scattered here there and everywhere.
Clearly, I lost yesterday's wrestling match, hence the somewhat slapdash appearance of my witty, pithy, etc critique of London, the Open House event and all manner of other subjects about which I am opinionated while knowing very little. You will have to take my word for it that I entered the field of battle with valour but, in the final reckoning, was defeated by the fact that the window into which I type my pearls of wisdom and position my photographic works of artistic merit operates to a wholly different agenda than the one on which the posting is finally viewed. Yes, it's the old story that "it looked okay on MY screen" or WYSIWYG where that "I" in the middle actually stands for "isn't".
Clearly, I lost yesterday's wrestling match, hence the somewhat slapdash appearance of my witty, pithy, etc critique of London, the Open House event and all manner of other subjects about which I am opinionated while knowing very little. You will have to take my word for it that I entered the field of battle with valour but, in the final reckoning, was defeated by the fact that the window into which I type my pearls of wisdom and position my photographic works of artistic merit operates to a wholly different agenda than the one on which the posting is finally viewed. Yes, it's the old story that "it looked okay on MY screen" or WYSIWYG where that "I" in the middle actually stands for "isn't".
I also feel that it was unfair of me to give no attribution to the 'Hope' photograph. As any Handel expert would immediately have known, this beautiful trompe l'oeil feature (yes, it's a painting not a sculpture) is in the Church Of St Lawrence in Stanmore. Take the tube to Canons Park, turn left as you leave the station and it's a short walk along Whitchurch Lane. Medieval tower, eighteenth century church and Handel used to play the organ - what more could you want from a trip out to zone 5?
Mention of zone 5 reminds me that a few years ago I found a website, written by Quin Parker, describing his adventurous excursions to stations in zone 6. Clearly Canons Park would be worthy of inclusion if only it were slightly further flung. At the time, I found his writing hilarious and, searching for it a few days ago to see where he had been lately, all I could find were Google links to pages that no longer existed. Where has Mr Parker's travelogue gone? If anyone can find it, please let me know.
And finally, I'm sure that you have been missing him and have been anxiously awaiting news of his progress. Yes, without further ado, I hereby present you with another lovely picture of our favourite gent who has gone to seed (ha ha).
Notwithstanding the fact that his lipstick is running, his nose is turning blue and his hair is made of grass, S feels that he resembles
Kevin McCloud more and more each day. You, the reader must decide - opinions in the usual place please (i.e. nowhere, but one can always dream of dialogue).
Mention of zone 5 reminds me that a few years ago I found a website, written by Quin Parker, describing his adventurous excursions to stations in zone 6. Clearly Canons Park would be worthy of inclusion if only it were slightly further flung. At the time, I found his writing hilarious and, searching for it a few days ago to see where he had been lately, all I could find were Google links to pages that no longer existed. Where has Mr Parker's travelogue gone? If anyone can find it, please let me know.
And finally, I'm sure that you have been missing him and have been anxiously awaiting news of his progress. Yes, without further ado, I hereby present you with another lovely picture of our favourite gent who has gone to seed (ha ha).Notwithstanding the fact that his lipstick is running, his nose is turning blue and his hair is made of grass, S feels that he resembles
Kevin McCloud more and more each day. You, the reader must decide - opinions in the usual place please (i.e. nowhere, but one can always dream of dialogue).Sunday, 21 September 2008
open up - it's the public
This weekend, nearly seven hundred grand, humble, wonderful, terrible, trendy and fusty buildings invited the general public to have a good old poke around. London Open House is an 
annual event which restores one's faith in mankind since it is wide-ranging, generous and free.
Portcullis House, cutting across St Stephen's Tower (am I a pedant for using the name of the building, rather than the bell (Big Ben) which it houses?), was showing off its surprisingly light and airy atrium, nestling within the troll-like fortifications. It also surprised us with its Gerald Scarfe exhibition, clearly illustrating the old maxim that politicians really would rather be insulted, even within their own workplace, than ignored. Glorious as the atrium may be, the meeting rooms looked as boring as meeting rooms anywhere else and we were left to guess the state of the offices above. It does make one wonder whether palatial quarters for MPs is the best use of taxpayer's money, even if they do let us into the lobby once a year. Would it be terribly ungrateful of me to ask how many hospitals we could have had instead if the MPs had continued to work inside tiny broom cupboards in the Palace Of Westminster? How about if they had just had a normal glass and steel box of the sort infesting every city in the world and the difference spent on hospitals - how many then?
Never mind. Let us move on. It was a day of crosses, starting with the numerous
red crosses warning rascal drivers not to attempt to park and obscuring the view of, shame on us, London's most popular tourist attraction. Not only does this cursed thing have the effrontery to refer to its tawdry fairground ride as a 'flight', it even has the nerve to charge £15.50 for the experience. What is it with our infatuation with going up things to come down again and at such great expense? In the time it takes to queue up numerous times and trundle around in a glass dustbin, any self-respecting tourist could take a healthy walk around any number of beautiful scenic views, or the lazy ones could take a bus ride around them. Either option would be cheaper and more rewarding but, even though they are fairly obvious, I don't see the London Eye running out of suckers any time soon.
In case you can't make it out, the label in this
rake's hat says 'My favourite bit of London'. I don't think the hat was original. A prize to the person who can identify the sculpture and its precise location - write me a comment telling me. No prizes for identifying the fellow in the other photograph although perhaps you would care to suggest the sort of hat which would best suit 
Mr Reuter. Even hatted, though, I do not feel that he will become anyone's favourite bit.
Another cross greeted us duri
ng the half-hour queue to enter the Lloyd's building and, once inside, the view down through the numerous floors to the bell and the clock 
and the tiny ant-like figures reminded me of Orson Welles in 'The Third Man', berating Joseph Cotton for his sentimentality and asking him, from atop an observation wheel not altogether unlike the London Eye, whether he would "...really worry if one of those dots stopped moving", given that he was making a large profit from stopping quite a few such dots. Bearing in mind the recent and continuing financial turmoil, I can honestly say that I would worry about the fate of the dots but, at the same time, am concerned how many of the normal occupants of that building could say the same.
Three
more crosses against a beautiful pollution-coloured sunset. N was in the bath at the time.
Finally, I leave you with hope
, or maybe I should say Hope.
annual event which restores one's faith in mankind since it is wide-ranging, generous and free.Portcullis House, cutting across St Stephen's Tower (am I a pedant for using the name of the building, rather than the bell (Big Ben) which it houses?), was showing off its surprisingly light and airy atrium, nestling within the troll-like fortifications. It also surprised us with its Gerald Scarfe exhibition, clearly illustrating the old maxim that politicians really would rather be insulted, even within their own workplace, than ignored. Glorious as the atrium may be, the meeting rooms looked as boring as meeting rooms anywhere else and we were left to guess the state of the offices above. It does make one wonder whether palatial quarters for MPs is the best use of taxpayer's money, even if they do let us into the lobby once a year. Would it be terribly ungrateful of me to ask how many hospitals we could have had instead if the MPs had continued to work inside tiny broom cupboards in the Palace Of Westminster? How about if they had just had a normal glass and steel box of the sort infesting every city in the world and the difference spent on hospitals - how many then?
Never mind. Let us move on. It was a day of crosses, starting with the numerous
red crosses warning rascal drivers not to attempt to park and obscuring the view of, shame on us, London's most popular tourist attraction. Not only does this cursed thing have the effrontery to refer to its tawdry fairground ride as a 'flight', it even has the nerve to charge £15.50 for the experience. What is it with our infatuation with going up things to come down again and at such great expense? In the time it takes to queue up numerous times and trundle around in a glass dustbin, any self-respecting tourist could take a healthy walk around any number of beautiful scenic views, or the lazy ones could take a bus ride around them. Either option would be cheaper and more rewarding but, even though they are fairly obvious, I don't see the London Eye running out of suckers any time soon.In case you can't make it out, the label in this
rake's hat says 'My favourite bit of London'. I don't think the hat was original. A prize to the person who can identify the sculpture and its precise location - write me a comment telling me. No prizes for identifying the fellow in the other photograph although perhaps you would care to suggest the sort of hat which would best suit Mr Reuter. Even hatted, though, I do not feel that he will become anyone's favourite bit.Another cross greeted us duri
ng the half-hour queue to enter the Lloyd's building and, once inside, the view down through the numerous floors to the bell and the clock and the tiny ant-like figures reminded me of Orson Welles in 'The Third Man', berating Joseph Cotton for his sentimentality and asking him, from atop an observation wheel not altogether unlike the London Eye, whether he would "...really worry if one of those dots stopped moving", given that he was making a large profit from stopping quite a few such dots. Bearing in mind the recent and continuing financial turmoil, I can honestly say that I would worry about the fate of the dots but, at the same time, am concerned how many of the normal occupants of that building could say the same.Three
more crosses against a beautiful pollution-coloured sunset. N was in the bath at the time.Finally, I leave you with hope
, or maybe I should say Hope.Thursday, 18 September 2008
a stunning lack of perspective
"It's like a terrible death or like a massive earthquake," said Kirsty McCluskley. But what was she describing? What was this calamity of earth-shattering importance? What appalling body count could be ascribed to it?
She was, of course, describing the realisation that some of the best paid people in the country were going to lose their jobs and would have to go and work for the people across the street instead or maybe, shock horror, go out there are get a real job. Yes, it's the Lehman Bros story. (I like abbreviating them thus - it makes them look like a tawdry department store, paint peeling, unnatural smell in the toilets, moths the best customers, etc.) Kirsty used to work on their trading floor, hence the belief that the drying up of the goodies in her trough is a calamity on a global, nay, galactic, level.
No, this isn't going to be another naive rant about the financial sector, not even for the amusement of Betty (see earlier post). But - come on guys! If you build your glittering palace not only on sand but out of sand, and then expect the rest of us to stand around and hold it all up while you lie back on your sun-loungers basking in the sunshine, please don't also expect us to rebuild it for you when it collapses. Or, to put it another way, you ain't done nothing for me lately - explain, please, why my tax pounds should be thrown into your pockets to help you put your farcical charade back together again. Well would you look it that - turns out it was another rant after all.
Anyway, there is some good news. Just think about all the senior managers, most of whose bonuses for the last year or two were paid in shares in the firm. It's not money, it's schadenfreude that makes the world go round.
And, to move on to another of my favourite subjects - the doyenne of literature, (the no-doubt soon to be Dame) J K Rowling. I know it's old news, but from way back in April, courtesy of the BBC:
The growth continues apace atop Mr Grass-Head. We'll have a veritable forest before too long. Since I short-changed you yesterday with a, frankly, rubbish photograph, here's a better one. He's a bit thin on top but getting quite luxuriant around the edge. I fear he may become a monk.
She was, of course, describing the realisation that some of the best paid people in the country were going to lose their jobs and would have to go and work for the people across the street instead or maybe, shock horror, go out there are get a real job. Yes, it's the Lehman Bros story. (I like abbreviating them thus - it makes them look like a tawdry department store, paint peeling, unnatural smell in the toilets, moths the best customers, etc.) Kirsty used to work on their trading floor, hence the belief that the drying up of the goodies in her trough is a calamity on a global, nay, galactic, level.
No, this isn't going to be another naive rant about the financial sector, not even for the amusement of Betty (see earlier post). But - come on guys! If you build your glittering palace not only on sand but out of sand, and then expect the rest of us to stand around and hold it all up while you lie back on your sun-loungers basking in the sunshine, please don't also expect us to rebuild it for you when it collapses. Or, to put it another way, you ain't done nothing for me lately - explain, please, why my tax pounds should be thrown into your pockets to help you put your farcical charade back together again. Well would you look it that - turns out it was another rant after all.
Anyway, there is some good news. Just think about all the senior managers, most of whose bonuses for the last year or two were paid in shares in the firm. It's not money, it's schadenfreude that makes the world go round.
And, to move on to another of my favourite subjects - the doyenne of literature, (the no-doubt soon to be Dame) J K Rowling. I know it's old news, but from way back in April, courtesy of the BBC:
"...publication of an unofficial Harry Potter encyclopaedia could 'open the floodgates' for countless rip-offs. All writers would be threatened by the move..."Come on, everyone, show your appreciation to Ms Rowling for her kind, selfless and, oh, self-enriching action. It gets better, though. In September, we have the following, also from the BBC:
"...She had been planning to write her own definitive encyclopaedia, the proceeds of which she had intended to donate to charity. However, she told the court in April she is not sure if she has 'the will or the heart' to do it after all."So it's all the fault of this lexicon-writing fan that she's now going to sulk and not publish a book in aid of charity. Suffer the little children. Come on J K - all you need to do is staff it out - how difficult can it be to cobble together any old guide to the books - it doesn't even need to be any good - the public will buy it... Come to think of it, since you've recently been in court showing that you already own the intellectual rights to it, just publish your ex-fan's lexicon yourself under your own name. Job done, charity richer. I'll waive my fee for the idea.
The growth continues apace atop Mr Grass-Head. We'll have a veritable forest before too long. Since I short-changed you yesterday with a, frankly, rubbish photograph, here's a better one. He's a bit thin on top but getting quite luxuriant around the edge. I fear he may become a monk.
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
mysteries of modern living
The car has been grumbling again. Not satisfied with displaying its revenue-generating warning that a service is due every time I start the engine (and which, funnily enough, can only be turned off by a car mechanic), it is now, for the third time in my relationship with it, telling me that there is a problem with the airbag.
The first airbag warning appeared the day after I took ownership of the car. Back it went for a few parts to be taken out, shaken about and plugged back in again, fortunately under warranty. The second warning appeared six months later and back it went. That time, a cable under the passenger seat which does something or other airbaggy, had become detached - whether by a groping passenger trying to adjust the seat, or bad luck, or slippery connection or perhaps a weevil tunnelling around in the upholstery, we shall never know. Anyway, they plugged it back in under warranty.
Having heard this account, I duly lay on the ground next to the car and had a look under the passenger seat and there, flapping around without a care in the world, was too much wire with too little restraint. Immediately I thought I would get a cable tie and attach the wire to something under the seat, thereby possibly preventing a recurrence. About eighteen months later, I have still not got around to it and it occurs to me that perhaps the Nissan genius who designed this wiring also thought that cable ties would be the answer but never got around to introducing them to the manufacturing process of the car. They don't make the Primera anymore - possibly due to their inability to get around to fastening the airbaggy wire that flaps around under the passenger seat.
Who knows what evil fault will be found and exorcised this time around? It's going in on Monday for its operation.
Be that as it may - I hate this car. I bought it as a replacement for my lovely 1991 Nissan Primera which I fear I prematurely consigned to the scrap heap simply because it did things like not start when you asked it to and, oddly symmetrically, not always immediately stopping when you took the key out. The sharks at the dealership told me it sounded expensive and, like a fool, albeit a fool with the MOT and road tax due in a matter of days, I asked them what they had by way of upgrade.
So I mainly hate this car for the manner in which it came into my ownership but also because of its persistent complaining about its airbag and the annoying rattle in the dashboard which Nissan UK tell me they will fix under warranty if the fault is something that is covered by warranty but they can't possibly tell (or even guess) whether it would be and so I might have to pay three hundred quid for them to take the whole dashboard apart to find out. I'm living with the rattle and hating the car.
I do like the remote locking. This might seem tremendously old hat but remember, my previous car came from the medieval period and so, to me, it's practically an act of magic - even more than the air conditioning and the instant fuel economy calculation (see earlier posting). Although, when did you ever see someone with a similar lock on the front door of their house? If it's secure enough for cars, why isn't it good enough for homes? And if it isn't good enough for homes, why is it secure enough for cars? And no, I don't count remote garage doors because they are just for people too lazy to get out of the car. I'm talking about the ability to stagger up the front path, laden with shopping bags, press a tiny button on the key in your pocket and gently shoulder the door open on your way in without having to put anything down. Surely this could be available to the mass market? Answers on a postcard, or even in the comments after this post. (I ask and ask but does anyone write anything? Well, take a look for yourselves. Hello? Is there anybody alive out there?)
And finally, some wonderful news. Old baldy Grass-Head is bald no more, although I appreciate it's hard to make out more than a couple of grass spikes in the photo - trust me, there are sixteen (I've counted). And Victoria Sandwich cakes are buy-one-get-one-half-price at Marks & Spencer. Obviously if I hadn't tried to get the cake boxes in the picture, I could have focussed on the grass but where would be the fun in that?
The first airbag warning appeared the day after I took ownership of the car. Back it went for a few parts to be taken out, shaken about and plugged back in again, fortunately under warranty. The second warning appeared six months later and back it went. That time, a cable under the passenger seat which does something or other airbaggy, had become detached - whether by a groping passenger trying to adjust the seat, or bad luck, or slippery connection or perhaps a weevil tunnelling around in the upholstery, we shall never know. Anyway, they plugged it back in under warranty.
Having heard this account, I duly lay on the ground next to the car and had a look under the passenger seat and there, flapping around without a care in the world, was too much wire with too little restraint. Immediately I thought I would get a cable tie and attach the wire to something under the seat, thereby possibly preventing a recurrence. About eighteen months later, I have still not got around to it and it occurs to me that perhaps the Nissan genius who designed this wiring also thought that cable ties would be the answer but never got around to introducing them to the manufacturing process of the car. They don't make the Primera anymore - possibly due to their inability to get around to fastening the airbaggy wire that flaps around under the passenger seat.
Who knows what evil fault will be found and exorcised this time around? It's going in on Monday for its operation.
Be that as it may - I hate this car. I bought it as a replacement for my lovely 1991 Nissan Primera which I fear I prematurely consigned to the scrap heap simply because it did things like not start when you asked it to and, oddly symmetrically, not always immediately stopping when you took the key out. The sharks at the dealership told me it sounded expensive and, like a fool, albeit a fool with the MOT and road tax due in a matter of days, I asked them what they had by way of upgrade.
So I mainly hate this car for the manner in which it came into my ownership but also because of its persistent complaining about its airbag and the annoying rattle in the dashboard which Nissan UK tell me they will fix under warranty if the fault is something that is covered by warranty but they can't possibly tell (or even guess) whether it would be and so I might have to pay three hundred quid for them to take the whole dashboard apart to find out. I'm living with the rattle and hating the car.
I do like the remote locking. This might seem tremendously old hat but remember, my previous car came from the medieval period and so, to me, it's practically an act of magic - even more than the air conditioning and the instant fuel economy calculation (see earlier posting). Although, when did you ever see someone with a similar lock on the front door of their house? If it's secure enough for cars, why isn't it good enough for homes? And if it isn't good enough for homes, why is it secure enough for cars? And no, I don't count remote garage doors because they are just for people too lazy to get out of the car. I'm talking about the ability to stagger up the front path, laden with shopping bags, press a tiny button on the key in your pocket and gently shoulder the door open on your way in without having to put anything down. Surely this could be available to the mass market? Answers on a postcard, or even in the comments after this post. (I ask and ask but does anyone write anything? Well, take a look for yourselves. Hello? Is there anybody alive out there?)
And finally, some wonderful news. Old baldy Grass-Head is bald no more, although I appreciate it's hard to make out more than a couple of grass spikes in the photo - trust me, there are sixteen (I've counted). And Victoria Sandwich cakes are buy-one-get-one-half-price at Marks & Spencer. Obviously if I hadn't tried to get the cake boxes in the picture, I could have focussed on the grass but where would be the fun in that?
Sunday, 14 September 2008
on reflection
Unusually, I wrote yesterday's post during the daytime. Some time later, a little after midnight, standing in the bathroom, brushing my teeth (using a lovely Braun electric toothbrush - an absolute revelation, although S complained that it made her want to gag when she first used it), I realised that one of my lengthy paragraphs had meandered around the point which I was trying to make but had not actually made it during its few laps.
I had written: "Were Shakespeare's synopses any good? Did Douglas Adams research some personalised titbit about the literary agent he contacted? Does Zadie Smith have a great-uncle who runs a publishing house? Probably not - I presume that people read their work and formed an opinion accordingly. Otherwise, published authors will be those skilled at self-publicity which, to put it kindly, will be a subset of the great writers in the world."
The missing sentences, which could probably be inserted in place of 'Probably not' should have said something along the lines of... "The answer is neither yes nor no but 'who cares?' - these books have been published and people can now enjoy their wily and playful poetry and prose. How many more such books have been lost for all eternity due to their author's inability to boast and brag and thrust himself (or herself, clearly) forward with much 'hey look at me' and little or no modesty?"
There. I feel better now for having clarified my own thoughts and put my wiser words out to the world-wise web. (Yeah yeah, I know, it's not a typo - it's humour, but what with 's' being next to 'd' on the keyboard, I'm sure someone somewhere would have thought he was being smarter than me - not this time, pal!)
Update on Mr Grass-Head: no grass yet.
I had written: "Were Shakespeare's synopses any good? Did Douglas Adams research some personalised titbit about the literary agent he contacted? Does Zadie Smith have a great-uncle who runs a publishing house? Probably not - I presume that people read their work and formed an opinion accordingly. Otherwise, published authors will be those skilled at self-publicity which, to put it kindly, will be a subset of the great writers in the world."
The missing sentences, which could probably be inserted in place of 'Probably not' should have said something along the lines of... "The answer is neither yes nor no but 'who cares?' - these books have been published and people can now enjoy their wily and playful poetry and prose. How many more such books have been lost for all eternity due to their author's inability to boast and brag and thrust himself (or herself, clearly) forward with much 'hey look at me' and little or no modesty?"
There. I feel better now for having clarified my own thoughts and put my wiser words out to the world-wise web. (Yeah yeah, I know, it's not a typo - it's humour, but what with 's' being next to 'd' on the keyboard, I'm sure someone somewhere would have thought he was being smarter than me - not this time, pal!)
Update on Mr Grass-Head: no grass yet.
Saturday, 13 September 2008
downtrodden and put upon
Literary agents - what a cheeky bunch they are. You may feel that making such comments cannot improve my chances of finding one of them who wants to live, breathe and sleep my writing - but someone has to take a stand when everyone else is either too obsequious, apathetic or busy doing something else.
I refer to the blog of Nathan Bransford, literary agent, (http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com), which came to my attention by dint of being Blogger's Blog Of Note on Thursday. Don't jump to conclusions, please. He comes across as friendly, helpful, approachable - and he even suggests that he reads queries himself and replies personally. He suggests (practically demands) that aspiring authors contact him before anybody else. Clearly I do not take issue with any of that.
However (yes, obviously there was a big 'however' coming), he also enters the dangerous world of how to write your query, your synopsis and your sycophancy. Maybe I'm just being naive here (and maybe there's no maybe about it) but I always thought that authors wrote books, that advertisers wrote advertising and that editors wrote synopses. In other words, people should play to their strengths. Were Shakespeare's synopses any good? Did Douglas Adams research some personalised titbit about the literary agent he contacted? Does Zadie Smith have a great-uncle who runs a publishing house? Probably not - I presume that people read their work and formed an opinion accordingly. Otherwise, published authors will be those skilled at self-publicity which, to put it kindly, will be a subset of the great writers in the world.
In a world where there are far too many aspiring authors, separating the manuscripts that are read from those which are moved straight into their return envelopes by evaluating the author's skill at toadying is about as sensible as the (worryingly plausible) story of the popular law firm which threw all job applications down a flight of stairs and only read the ones that fell on every seventh step. They reasoned that anyone not sufficiently lucky to have a form which knew which step to land on was not lucky enough to work for them. Clearly, one hopes this firm has long since gone into bankruptcy - yet there is not any great difference between this approach and assuming that an ability to write a ground-breaking, record-breaking, sleep-stealing novel will naturally lead to an ability to sum up the hundred-thousand words or so into a pithy single page and write a letter both fawning and informative enough to get the attention of the agent.
"What do I suggest?" I hear you ask. (Or I would, if anyone ever bothered to put a comment on this blog.) "Well, thanks for asking", I say. (Or I would, if etc.) Nathan - as a friendly, helpful and, by all appearances, useful agent, you could lead the way. Invite unpublished authors to email you a chapter or two. Make it environmentally friendly by refusing paper copies. And (here comes the clever bit) absolutely forbid anything in the covering email apart from author's name, address and email address. Yes, it will open the flood gates but, as you well know, you can stop after the first sentence if it's rubbish, or after the first paragraph if it's dull, or after the first page if you don't care what happens next, or after the first chapter if it doesn't drive you across the divide to chapter two like a rocket unexpectedly fired out of your trousers. And if you get all the way through and can't wait to read the rest, then and only then ask for a synopsis so you know whether the overall story will satisfy you or leave you feeling empty and hollow (like when you go out for a meal at a fast food joint and start feeling a bit peckish in the time it takes to get up from the plastic chair, deposit your rubbish in the bin and push the door).
In short, evaluate the BOOK writing, not the letter writing, not the synopsis writing and not the advertising writing. These people want to be authors.
What have you got to lose? Worst case, you might need to get Curtis Brown to increase the mailbox size but, hey, storage is cheap these days. You can get a terrabyte hard drive for about ninety pounds so it's probably ninety bucks where you are which makes it cheaper than a full tank of petrol for a Hummer.
Give it a go - we can all win. How about you give me 1% of revenue for any new authors you find this way? No harm in asking...
Since my last post, I have started to read Nathan's blog and like it. The above is intended as helpful advice. That is the full extent of my work towards publication and, shockingly, I have not looked at Authonomy for a while. This is not a change of opinion, merely an expression of laziness, inertia and a few good programmes on the telly.
I have also watched the totally wonderful in every way "Mr Maker" on BBC2. Technically, N has watched it and I have watched her watching it but, in reality, I probably like it more than she does. As his name suggests, he makes stuff out of old bits of, er, stuff - and the old bits of stuff are all stuff that you might have lying around. Yesterday we made Mr Grass-Head from an old pair of tights, some grass seed, a paper cup, three elastic bands, cotton wool and a biro. Oh, and some water on the top. Hopefully, in a week's time, he'll be sporting a good head of grass-hair. And if it doesn't work, we can have another go because the smallest pack of grass seeds I could find would enable me to plant a medium-sized lawn.
For the first time on this blog, I now present a photograph, showing Mr Grass-Head in his bald but aspiring to hirsute phase. Ideally, I would have used flesh-coloured elastic bands but all I could find were discarded Royal Mail red ones. If the sunshine doesn't help the grass to germinate and grow, perhaps the radiation from the mobile phone masts on the building behind will help.
I refer to the blog of Nathan Bransford, literary agent, (http://nathanbransford.blogspot.com), which came to my attention by dint of being Blogger's Blog Of Note on Thursday. Don't jump to conclusions, please. He comes across as friendly, helpful, approachable - and he even suggests that he reads queries himself and replies personally. He suggests (practically demands) that aspiring authors contact him before anybody else. Clearly I do not take issue with any of that.
However (yes, obviously there was a big 'however' coming), he also enters the dangerous world of how to write your query, your synopsis and your sycophancy. Maybe I'm just being naive here (and maybe there's no maybe about it) but I always thought that authors wrote books, that advertisers wrote advertising and that editors wrote synopses. In other words, people should play to their strengths. Were Shakespeare's synopses any good? Did Douglas Adams research some personalised titbit about the literary agent he contacted? Does Zadie Smith have a great-uncle who runs a publishing house? Probably not - I presume that people read their work and formed an opinion accordingly. Otherwise, published authors will be those skilled at self-publicity which, to put it kindly, will be a subset of the great writers in the world.
In a world where there are far too many aspiring authors, separating the manuscripts that are read from those which are moved straight into their return envelopes by evaluating the author's skill at toadying is about as sensible as the (worryingly plausible) story of the popular law firm which threw all job applications down a flight of stairs and only read the ones that fell on every seventh step. They reasoned that anyone not sufficiently lucky to have a form which knew which step to land on was not lucky enough to work for them. Clearly, one hopes this firm has long since gone into bankruptcy - yet there is not any great difference between this approach and assuming that an ability to write a ground-breaking, record-breaking, sleep-stealing novel will naturally lead to an ability to sum up the hundred-thousand words or so into a pithy single page and write a letter both fawning and informative enough to get the attention of the agent.
"What do I suggest?" I hear you ask. (Or I would, if anyone ever bothered to put a comment on this blog.) "Well, thanks for asking", I say. (Or I would, if etc.) Nathan - as a friendly, helpful and, by all appearances, useful agent, you could lead the way. Invite unpublished authors to email you a chapter or two. Make it environmentally friendly by refusing paper copies. And (here comes the clever bit) absolutely forbid anything in the covering email apart from author's name, address and email address. Yes, it will open the flood gates but, as you well know, you can stop after the first sentence if it's rubbish, or after the first paragraph if it's dull, or after the first page if you don't care what happens next, or after the first chapter if it doesn't drive you across the divide to chapter two like a rocket unexpectedly fired out of your trousers. And if you get all the way through and can't wait to read the rest, then and only then ask for a synopsis so you know whether the overall story will satisfy you or leave you feeling empty and hollow (like when you go out for a meal at a fast food joint and start feeling a bit peckish in the time it takes to get up from the plastic chair, deposit your rubbish in the bin and push the door).
In short, evaluate the BOOK writing, not the letter writing, not the synopsis writing and not the advertising writing. These people want to be authors.
What have you got to lose? Worst case, you might need to get Curtis Brown to increase the mailbox size but, hey, storage is cheap these days. You can get a terrabyte hard drive for about ninety pounds so it's probably ninety bucks where you are which makes it cheaper than a full tank of petrol for a Hummer.
Give it a go - we can all win. How about you give me 1% of revenue for any new authors you find this way? No harm in asking...
Since my last post, I have started to read Nathan's blog and like it. The above is intended as helpful advice. That is the full extent of my work towards publication and, shockingly, I have not looked at Authonomy for a while. This is not a change of opinion, merely an expression of laziness, inertia and a few good programmes on the telly.
I have also watched the totally wonderful in every way "Mr Maker" on BBC2. Technically, N has watched it and I have watched her watching it but, in reality, I probably like it more than she does. As his name suggests, he makes stuff out of old bits of, er, stuff - and the old bits of stuff are all stuff that you might have lying around. Yesterday we made Mr Grass-Head from an old pair of tights, some grass seed, a paper cup, three elastic bands, cotton wool and a biro. Oh, and some water on the top. Hopefully, in a week's time, he'll be sporting a good head of grass-hair. And if it doesn't work, we can have another go because the smallest pack of grass seeds I could find would enable me to plant a medium-sized lawn.
For the first time on this blog, I now present a photograph, showing Mr Grass-Head in his bald but aspiring to hirsute phase. Ideally, I would have used flesh-coloured elastic bands but all I could find were discarded Royal Mail red ones. If the sunshine doesn't help the grass to germinate and grow, perhaps the radiation from the mobile phone masts on the building behind will help.Wednesday, 10 September 2008
the kindness of strangers
I can only apologise to my loyal readers for the dearth of fresh exciting content on this blog. As mitigation, I can only say that I have become lost in authonomy (see previous post) and that reading the work of others, together with writing the occasional comment, has been taking up the spare time which I would previously have devoted to this blog.
As an online writers' circle, it is a truly wonderful thing, a thing of beauty, etc - since it is replete with examples of the kindness of strangers. Every time that anyone has commented on another's work, the notes have been constructive. This is not a land of yah-boo-sucks, it is a veritable mutual appreciation society. Whether anything will come of it remains to be seen but, even if it does not lead to publication, it is a good 'place' to spend time.
Incidentally, I hope that you already know all of the above, having signed up with http://www.authonomy.com/ and begun backing books, sprinking around kind words and generally getting your views out there and valued - so that when I finally add my work, you can all wax lyrical and people (i.e. the Harper Collins editorial board) will take note and... You may complete that sentence in your own way.
I am, inexorably, moving closer to having maybe as much as six hours each week in order to peddle my writing, drone on at great length on this blog, bother other writers with my ill-thought-out guidance and inflict my own books on the world. Yes, N today spent two full nursery hours without my being in the room (although, admittedly, I was all of about twenty yards away in the park café). Next week, at 9.15am on Tuesday, I shall leave her to fun and games and learning and excitement and wonder and a bit of singing with Chris playing the guitar (whoever he may be) and I shall run to my car, drive like a maniac back home, make myself a cup of tea and probably sit down and not achieve anything much while feeling that the flat is very quiet. But on Wednesday, I shall achieve.
As an online writers' circle, it is a truly wonderful thing, a thing of beauty, etc - since it is replete with examples of the kindness of strangers. Every time that anyone has commented on another's work, the notes have been constructive. This is not a land of yah-boo-sucks, it is a veritable mutual appreciation society. Whether anything will come of it remains to be seen but, even if it does not lead to publication, it is a good 'place' to spend time.
Incidentally, I hope that you already know all of the above, having signed up with http://www.authonomy.com/ and begun backing books, sprinking around kind words and generally getting your views out there and valued - so that when I finally add my work, you can all wax lyrical and people (i.e. the Harper Collins editorial board) will take note and... You may complete that sentence in your own way.
I am, inexorably, moving closer to having maybe as much as six hours each week in order to peddle my writing, drone on at great length on this blog, bother other writers with my ill-thought-out guidance and inflict my own books on the world. Yes, N today spent two full nursery hours without my being in the room (although, admittedly, I was all of about twenty yards away in the park café). Next week, at 9.15am on Tuesday, I shall leave her to fun and games and learning and excitement and wonder and a bit of singing with Chris playing the guitar (whoever he may be) and I shall run to my car, drive like a maniac back home, make myself a cup of tea and probably sit down and not achieve anything much while feeling that the flat is very quiet. But on Wednesday, I shall achieve.
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