Gods Behaving Badly

I haven't even read Marie's new book yet, but I did hold one in my hand at a friend's house the other night (more on that evening later, I hope) and IT IS GORGEOUS.

I also read the first couple of pages and was instantly grabbed and I am now hovering impatiently around my letter box waiting for my copy which hasn't arrived yet.

It reminded me of how very nice books can be, as physical objects - and why (among other reasons) I'm so keen on publishers like Cape and Canongate; they have such beautiful covers (y'know, just in case anyone from Cape or Canongate are reading this, and feel they'd like to do something similar for Xxxx Xxxxxx, like...).

And not only is Marie's cover utterly scrummy, there are loads of beautiful little woodcut prints (or something like) on the frontispiece and title pages, and the whole thing is just an immensely pleasing package.

Hurrah for nice things. And now it had better hurry up and arrive, so I can read it.


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Miles and Dominic Davies

Ooh, I just remembered these two. I have to tell you about them.

I was dancing late at night to The Blockheads (they were great, and that reminds me to find out who was doing Ian Dury's bit, cos he was particularly great), and on the grass next to me was a pre-teen boy in a deckchair, reading a book and paying no attention to the band.

I thought maybe he was doing some kind of homework, because his book was covered in notes and scribbles. But I was close enough to see what kind of scribbles, and they were just the kind you'd make on a manuscript: Individual words crossed out, and new sentences inserted at specific points.

In the end I was so intrigued I crouched down next to him and asked about it. Turned out he was 12 years old, and holding the latest version of a book he and his 18-year-old brother are writing together, which he was in the process of redrafting. Later on the older brother appeared, and told me he's been writing since he was six, and this is what he does: he's a writer.

I gave some vague advice on coming up with a title (the current one is Rays of Hope, and they're not happy with it), but sadly I wasn't together enough to find out any more. They don't have a publisher yet. They did take my name though, so maybe they'll find this. I AM IMPRESSED. That is all (well, unless they'd like editorial / touting-round-publishers input on the manuscript itself, in which case they should contact me, cos I confess I'm mightily intrigued).

Oh yes, and if I manage to get preggers in the next few months and nothing goes wrong, my two kids will also have a six-year age gap, and I love the idea of them sitting on a deckchair in the middle of the night at some future Big Chill, collaborating on their latest book.


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Ooh and aah and bleurgh

Oh, I am a little fuzzy-headed today. It's that Lucy Pepper's fault. We spent a long evening last night drinking wine and talking, very fast and very lots. I have to say Grumpy Professor Man was not in the least bit grumpy and was in fact rather charming and clever and lovely, and her kids are cute as buttons. And she's very good at telling stories and doing voices, and she should be on the stage, which I forgot to tell her. Remind me to tell her. Except of course that she's rather good at drawing pictures too, so maybe she doesn't need the stage.

But isn't it nice when you meet someone from t'internet and they are even nicer than you thought they were going to be, and you get on with them even better than do online? We were old friends immediately. And bloody hell, she's an awful lot like Anna (another one who's even better in the flesh). Twins separated at birth, if you ask me.

AND my house is all lovely and clean and tidy, which I always enjoy but never get motivated to sort out unless we have visitors. I approve of this people-coming-to-me lark. Never mind all this nonsense of me trekking down to London for blogmeets. Everyone come to Manchester! I also saw Rob at the weekend cos he's in Manchester for some conference thing, and we had a short-but-nice pub-meet sandwiched between other engagements, and next week I'm going to see Petite and Mike and [anonymous secret other] in [secret location], so I'm rather spoilt for Meeting Nice Bloggy People at the moment. I'm a bit worried about Mike though. He's been hinting (I think, if I understood correctly) that his blogging days may be coming to an end, to which I say nooooooooo, his was the first second blog I ever read. Not allowed.

So anyway, did I mention a literary agent WANTS ME TO BE HIS CLIENT? And WANTS TO SELL MY BOOK? And thinks it is "wonderful" and "sizzling" and might even appeal to a mainstream audience, and has loads of exciting ideas and OH MY GOD I MIGHT FINALLY BE GETTING THERE AT LAST?

I'm being a bit of a Little Madam, I confess, and it's all rather gone to my head and I did promise some other agents that I wouldn't sign anything before they had a chance to get back to me and although I'm still getting rejections, I'm also getting emails along the lines of, "Hang on! Wait for me! I'll read it this week, I promise!" which is all rather surreal and exciting and OH MY GOD and of course it might all come to nothing and none of this is any guarantee that anybody will want to publish the book but I'm suddenly feeling a hell of a lot more excited and optimistic about it all.

And whatever happens, I will now definitely have a literary agent who will try and sell my book on my behalf, and I've never been in this situation before. I had an agent once, but I didn't have a book to sell at the time, so it was all a bit meaningless. But now I will have a cheerleader, someone authoritative who believes in me and wants to help me succeed and probably CAN help me and OH MY GOD (did I say that already?) and OK, I confess that although I've been hugely excited on Marie's behalf (her book, Gods Behaving Badly, is officially published today and has already had several great reviews and people have been spotted reading it on tubes) I've also been just a teensy bit jealous but NO LONGER!

Oh, and I'll find out this weekend whether I'm pregnant or not. I confess I don't feel in the least bit preggers, but, you know, if I am that would make this The Best Week Ever and if I'm not, what the hell, there's always next month and I'm so excited about book stuff I don't really care.

Eek. And ooh, and eurgh, my head.


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Everybody Hug Gerry

Apparently the rest of the nation does not agree with me that Gerry off Big Brother is cute and clever and lovely!

You're all fools, but what's funny is that I had no idea people felt this way, and now that I know you do, I just want to rush in there and protect poor Gerry from you all.

Aww. Hugs for lovely Gerry, and a wagging finger for all those who disagree.


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They Only Come at Night

Sorry, I know some of you struggle to keep up when I have one of my content-splurging days. Ah well.

Anyway. Here is my review of the rather-wonderful performance I went to in Bradford late last night.

I knew I was in for a treat when the “car lift” turned out to be a man in a car, giving the audience a lift. Well, it was a car park after all. A multistorey, which the car went around and around from bottom to top, where we were ejected and seized by a sweaty and urgent young man, who gabbled about the rules. Something about not trying to outrun them, because they were faster than us.

I never did find out who “they” were, but I’m not sure it matters.

The top floor of Hall Ings car park in Bradford was full of smoke, and strobe lighting, and monologues in headphones, and plastic sheeting which billowed atmospherically while creepy images were projected onto it. Black-clad figures ran and stunt-rolled past, and there was shouting from somewhere out back. Part of the show? I don’t know.

At one point I was standing on a twig, and the twig moved. I looked down at my feet. Don’t be silly, I thought. But it moved again, so I turned, and the man - standing inches behind me, and I never knew - whispered in my ear, then ran off. I shrieked, loudly.

I liked that bit. And I liked the bit at the end, with the handful of salt and the scary woman in the shadows and the man, grabbing me urgently and pulling me away.

But the best part of this show came afterwards, as I sat in my car looking at an almost-full moon behind dramatic clouds, and everything I heard, saw and smelt seemed to be part of the performance. I like the idea of a piece which isn’t an experience so much as a seed, which plants itself and then grows through your senses even as it chucks you back out in the world.

And I wasn’t even stoned.

I haven’t a clue what it was about. I’m glad we were given the transcripts and I enjoyed reading them - they were well-written monologues about alienation, fear and strangeness. But it did feel like many random ideas, connected only loosely. There was a dead body, and maybe some ghostly dogs. But who cares? I enjoyed myself.

P.S.

I forgot to say, I'm feeling much better today.

As soon as people start worrying about me, I start worrying about them worrying about me. Seriously though, I'll be all right. I'm very volatile - can switch from utter despair to squeaky excitement within hours, so even when I'm in the depths of depression I know it won't last.

Last night I typed up and collated all the ideas I have for Novel III, and came up with a plan. Never mind all this trying-to-think-of-a-million-ways-of-making-money nonsense, it's doing my head in.

This summer I'll do a bit of creative writing, of various sorts, and in the autumn I'll put some serious effort into finding some IT-based freelance work - probably technical writing (documentation for IT systems, that kind of thing). Any time not spent tech writing will be focused on a new book. This will start with me writing some short stories, for various reasons - not least to experiment with style and form. Then I'll make a decision on what it's about and launch into Novel III, funding it with freelance stuff.

But I'll hold off on the difficult stuff for now until my head's a bit more sorted.

In the very short term, a few people have responded to my call for illustrators, and I already have two rather lovely pictures - one from my old friend Francis, and one from a new friend Lynda - to hang some words around. This is unlikely to make me any money, but it'll be fun.

I went out last night, to the theatre in Bradford. Well, it wasn't a theatre, it was a car park. I had a free press ticket and everything. I'm just writing a review for Bookarazzi (I'm learning the art of the blag (that's blag, not blog)) - I'll copy it here when it's done. But the performance, combined with listening to some brilliant music on my iPod on the way there and back (particularly Allegretto from Beethoven's Symphony no 7 - played VERY LOUD - and Hola Coma Estas by Andy Sheppard), perked me up considerably.

Hurrah for culture.


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I Like Harry Potter

Where on earth does this sniffiness come from, in regard to other people's reading matter?

It's not just taste. Many many people don't enjoy Shakespeare or Joyce, but would still nod approvingly to find somebody reading it.

But there's a really common attitude that there's something reprehensible about enjoying JK Rowling or Dan Brown. As though some crime were being committed. If you were to ask the sniffers, they'd probably tell you said crime was the destruction of literature, the implication being that for every copy of HP sold a copy of Ulysses is pulped. Which is nonsense.

For what it's worth, I like weird art, high art, inaccessible art, popular art, soap operas, modern jazz... and I enjoyed the Da Vinci Code and I love Harry Potter.

I enjoyed the Da Vinci Code because I enjoyed trying to solve the puzzles and I was carried along by the fast pace and the cliffhangers and, quite simply, I wanted to know what would happen next. Yes, it was badly written. Yes, the tendency to unnecessary exposition was annoying. But it was a ripping yarn, and I enjoyed it. I rarely find fiction to be perfect - there's normally something annoying about most stuff I read, but there'd not be much left if I refused to read anything imperfect.

The Harry Potter books are better than Dan Brown, but they're comparable in one sense: They're not great literature - in the sense that each paragraph is not perfectly composed, but they're fucking good stories. And good writing isn't just about a million subtle metaphors - it's about the content, too.

We may disagree about that. But so what?

What really annoys me is this idea that people should be castigated for what they read, and the suggestion that reading should always be about Improving Your Mind. Why? Why can't it be escapism, leisure, entertainment? Why should one person dictate what another should read, or presume to judge them as being inferior on that basis?

And the one that ticks me off more than anything is when people refuse to read or consume something because it's popular. What? Lots of people like it, therefore it must be rubbish? You're only interested in something if it marks you out as being the member of some kind of elite? You don't want to be associated with The Great Unwashed? What?

Well, anyway. I'm getting back to my Harry Potter.


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Out of the Tunnel, by Rachel North

Last weekend I consumed Rachel North's book about her experience of the 7/7 bombings, and it blew me away.

Here's the review I've just written for the Bookarazzi site:


Out of the Tunnel, by Rachel North

Rachel North is a woman to feel sorry for. Three years after being the near-dead victim of a horrific rape, she found herself in a tube carriage, on 7th July 2005. The only thing which saved her from death was the crush of passengers between her and the suicide bomber a few feet away.

You would expect her story to make you cry, and feel immense pity.

I didn’t. But I did find myself utterly gripped from the moment I started reading. I was carried along by this extraordinary woman’s ability to tell a story, by wanting to know what would happen next - despite knowing most of it already.

And far from feeling pity I felt admiration, and was inspired. She has felt anger, of course she has. And despair, and fear, and sick dread. But she has never drawn the conclusion that Islam is to blame, and the last thing she wants is to fear her neighbours. And despite the pull of pessimism, she tries to focus on the people in the dark. Those fellow tube passengers who never even looked at each other until they faced that horror together and held each other’s hands.

I consumed Out of the Tunnel eagerly, and what I got was an honest, touching and beautifully-written account, not just of suffering but of how to keep going and why, even if you have had your life threatened twice by random strangers, it’s still worth trusting your fellow man.


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Bookarazzi Again

You do know that I have helped set up a brand new website, and it's all about books, and it's called Bookarazzi, don't you?

And that it's a group website, and all our members are published writers, and we have a group blog, and occasionally I post stuff over there as well as over here?

Good. Just checking.


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Bookarazzi

I've mentioned BloggersWithBookDeals before, which is a group I set up for, um, bloggers with book deals. And Mike posted some very interesting notes the other day from a talk he did on the whole "blook" (yuk) phenomenon.

Well, anyway, for a few weeks now we've been working on a brand new website called Bookarazzi (www.bookarazzi.com). The idea is that we have a joint website and joint blog where we can answer people's qus about getting published, share what knowledge and expertise we have about the industry, have a little fun and, um, plug each other's books (well, obviously).

We'll regularly post new content, so it's worth sticking a bookmark on it. And if I had the faintest clue about rss feeds I'd tell you how to do that too, but I don't, so I won't. Lucy Pepper is our Technical Guru and can take the blame / praise for the nuts and bolts / designing the site, so feel free to ask her about more technical bits and bobs.

But never mind all that... go have a look!

Sorry for lack of eloquence, have been working on it all day and am still recovering from Heavy Partying in honour of my birthday on Sat night and now all I want to do is go eat. and sleep. and walk the dogs. and pick my son up from the childminders. oh hell.


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I just bought tickets for...

...that Chinese Monkey opera thingy by Jamie Hewlett and Damon Albarn! In Paris! In October! Ooh!

We were watching the TV show about it, and God it looked so amazing, and apparently it's been getting rave reviews, and I hadn't even heard of it, and Ally says I walk around with my head in a bubble and everybody's heard of it, and it's on in Manchester RIGHT NOW, which is funny cos I live in Manchester and we can't get tickets so instead I have to travel to another country to see it... but who cares when that country is France and it also happens to be Paris!

And I bought tickets! On the internet! In French! Ooh!

Details of the production here, and ticket-buying stuff here.

Am very excited.

Better go lie down now.


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Big Blogger is Bad

Listen to this: I wrote a bedtime story, especially for you.

Nighty night.


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A Great Description of Glasto

God I love Charlie Brooker.


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A Coincidence?

I saw the sabirock man again today. He was sitting outside the Cornerhouse, chatting to some girl, with his sandwich board on. I still haven't heard his music, because his website didn't work on my PC.

I don't think I want to hear it. I don't want to be disappointed.

Anyway, I stared at him, and he stared back, and this evening someone landed on my site because they googled Sabirock. I guess someone must have seen him and decided to google him. But I like the idea that was him, doing the googling.

Even though it probably wasn't.

[waves at Mr Sabirock]

The man is tireless.


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In Search of Pain

I'm not sure I can write a straightforward review of Caroline Smailes' book In Search of Adam. I can't write a dispassionate impartial account, because I didn't read it that way.

I just finished reading it yesterday morning, and like everyone else who's read it, it made me cry. And cry, and cry.

But I can't talk about that purely in reference to Caroline's book, because most of the crying I did was for me.

I started reading it on the bus, on the way home from the launch of the book, last Thursday. It's terribly-terribly sad from the very first paragraph, but that's OK, I was prepared for that. I'd already read that first chapter on Caroline's website, many months ago.

But after that, it gets even sadder. And so I found myself on Saturday morning, sitting in a deli in Chorlton (procuring hangover food after a massage), reading Caroline's book... and I reached a point where I had to put it down and push it away from me.

And this is where the personal stuff comes in, because I was still reverse-packing for my week off, and at that point I'd forgotten about the crying bit. I mean, I'd forgotten that a few weeks ago I said that after I'd sent my book off to dozens more agents, I was going to schedule time to sit down and have a good cry. All I knew was that loads of stuff had been going on in my life and I was tired and hungover and emotional, and I just couldn't cope with Caroline's book on top of everything else. I pushed it away and even thought about leaving it behind in the shop. An impromptu Book Crossing moment. And then I thought that it wasn't the kind of book you wanted someone to read without some warning about the content, so that wouldn't work either.

And then the curiosity kicked in. I even thought about throwing it away, but I couldn't because I had to know what happened to Jude.

Jude is a six-year-old girl, and terrible things happen to her. Heartbreaking, unbearable things.

I've never been much good at coping with other people's pain. I feel it too readily. But I also want to write about it. I understand that urge.

OK, another digression. A few months ago... well OK, I can be exact about the date. I can be exact about the date because it happened two days before I discovered I was miscarrying. I probably already was miscarrying - I just didn't know it - and this may explain the extremeness of my reaction. I was surfing the net and I chanced across some porn. This happens. I'm sure I'm not the only person it happens to, so I'm not going to try and explain myself. I thought it was the ordinary kind of porn, but it wasn't. It was a video of a woman. Well, a teenager. Apparently. She had a school uniform on. I think she was probably older than she looked. I hope she was. Anyway, she got raped. I stopped watching before it reached that part, because I saw it coming. But I couldn't help myself. I had to be sure. I fast forwarded to that point. I only watched that bit for the second that it took to click on the STOP button again, but it was enough. I was devastated. I cried and cried and cried. I gulped, I sobbed, I couldn't breathe. I ended up ringing the Samaritans because there was nobody else around I could talk to. It was just a film, just designed for twisted titillation, they were almost certainly actors. But what if they weren't? And even if they were, how could anybody want to watch that, let alone make it? I was destroyed all day. I couldn't function properly, could barely walk. I had that post-shock clumsiness of heavy don't-want-to-play limbs. I've been accused of being naive about it. OK then, it's true. I'm naive. I'm naive about pain and suffering and porn and manipulation and I'm quite happy to stay that way.

And no, I've never been raped. Or abused, in any way at all. Nobody's ever hit me. Barely even shouted at me. Maybe that's why I find it so hard to take, to hear, to understand, but maybe that's why I'm also intrigued. Horribly fascinated. Hating myself for wanting to know more. Hating the woman that fast-forwarded that video. Just to check.

But that's the woman that took this book home with me - didn't leave it behind or throw it away. Wanted to know more. And wanted to check that Jude was all right.

And I want to let you know that it didn't keep going, that the pain and suffering lessened, a little. Only a little, but it wasn't relentless. And really that is my only reservation about this wonderful book. It's so well written, so beautifully expressed, so empathetic and unflinching and Jude is still in my head and will probably stay there for quite some time. But. I did wonder if the pain, the unending repeating no-not-more-again pain at the beginning of the book was a little... gratuitous? Unnecessary? I don't know how you measure these things, but it's certainly hard to read.

So I'm warning you, but also reassuring you, it doesn't stay that way. Not permanently. There are some happy bits too. There is some relief. And it's an incredible book, and I'm glad I continued. It was definitely worth it.

And I wrote most of this post, and the one called "Butterfly Soul", immediately after finishing it, and Caroline's writing style has clearly leaked into my own, and that too is testament to its power.

And back to me again. The book kept poking me. And it reminded me, that I needed some time to cry. And it reminded me as well, in so many small oblique ways, as well as one very big specific one (which I didn't see coming until I was almost on top of it) that I am sad, and that something sad has happened to me, and that only in January I was looking at a small white strip with two significant pink stripes - one paler than the other.

It's been cathartic, reading Caroline's book. It's let a lot of stuff out. It's letting a lot of stuff out. It's not easy to read, but it's sublime nonetheless, and it explains a lot about some of the things people do, as well as raising a lot of questions. If you have some spare Kleenex and any pain to let out, I recommend it. She's a very talented woman.


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Tee hee

I wrote a song.

Well, no. I didn't write a song. I took an already-written song, which most people probably hate but I - to my shame - no, actually, why should I be ashamed? I like it and that's all there is to it - but anyway, this sentence is getting a bit complicated now - I didn't really write the song. I just converted it. Into a song about Squash. Never mind why, but I'm sort of proud of it - in a terribly-ashamed kind of way.

It's here.


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In Search of Adam book launch, Thurs June 14th

The exceptionally lovely Caroline Smailes has written a book called In Search of Adam, which is being published this week (I think), and there'll be a launch this Thurs (14th June), in Manchester from 7pm-9pm in Waterstones on Deansgate (city centre). Then afterwards, on to Mojo (a bar, I think).

I will be there, and I reckon it'll be a great event so anyone else in the NW would be recommended to attend to!

I haven't read In Search of Adam yet, but I've been wanting to ever since I read an extract on Caroline's blog, and since reading this review I want to even more. I'll definitely be getting myself a signed copy on Thurs.

I have smallish news about my book, too, but will write a proper blog post about that later.


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Updated Website

I've been updating the site - something I've been meaning to do for ages.

The main result is that the links work. It used to be that if you tried to explore the site you'd keep ending up back here no matter what you clicked. Oh, and this page here (and this one, this one, this one, this one and this one) no longer looks weird. And I've put links to most of my labels over there in the side bar (<---). And I've updated the Interviews section, to link to my recent radio interviews and tell you about an upcoming interview in Albion Magazine.

Oh yes. And Events. I'm doing a reading as part of Manchester Student Pride, next Sat (16th June), 5.30pm - 7pm. And I'm doing something as part of "Loved up in Libraries" in Oct or Nov. Details here.

I'll be reading from the new book at both of this events - it'll be its first public airing, which is exciting.

"Liverpool Libraries are going all rainbow coloured and want to put on a gay and lesbian literature festival as a new strand to their ever expanding homotopia festival.

The festival is to be launched by Armistead Maupin in June but will take place in the two weeks after York Lesbian Arts Festival (i.e. 29th Oct - 11th Nov '07). Should be something yummy to be involved with in its early stages as its something the council and libraries want to grow for next years Capital of Culture.

There will be one big launch event at Liverpool Central Library with workshops, speakers and food etc …also part of the format of the festival is to go out to the suburbs and run “Get loved up” in the libraries - sessions with much glitter, love tea and loving up going on in some frankly deprived and sometimes depressing areas…and to do some readings with authors to spread cheer and share stories with local residents."

Gay Paris

Oh flippin' 'eck, why is there always so much to do??

Well, the good news is that I'm sort-of-maybe-almost feeling a bit normal again, although as a good friend pointed out, there's no such thing as normal. Everything changes. But I've been off sick from work for the past few weeks, and that's affected my blogging.

I went back to work after the miscarriage, but I didn't last longer than a few days. I just couldn't cope. With anything. And then the doctor signed me off for stress, and then I felt all awkward about blogging. I didn't really want to go on about the stress, but I didn't feel much like writing about anything else, and anyway what if Someone Important read the blog and said "Ner ner, she's not sick, or how could she blog?" Which is obviously ridiculous - just because I'm ill, doesn't mean I can't blog - but still, it just feels kinda... argh, whatever, I'm going back to work tomorrow anyway.

We went to Paris at the weekend, which is another of those things you think maybe you should keep quiet about if you're Officially Ill, but it was of course very therapeutic. We were Manic Tourists on the Saturday and ran around Paris with a map in our hands going "let's go there! And then there! And then there!" We walked everywhere and didn't set foot in or on a single piece of transport until the evening, when we finally gave up and got the Metro to Montmartre. We didn't go in anything much, in fact - we just looked at things. We went in a few churches though, cos you can nip in for free, walk round the whole thing and back out again in double-quick time. There's something to be said for only having one floor and not bothering with internal walls. But we're both atheists, and Ally got a bit freaked out by all the churches - particularly when we got caught in the middle of a gigantic Catholic mass. Personally I just like the buildings.

Actually, that was interesting. We were in St Sulpice, and a mass was just coming to an end. Everyone was dressed in their best, and there were tons of kids and laughter and chatter, and I was thinking how much better a church felt when it was full of humanity having a fun day out. I was also admiring the stunning architecture and liking the combination of the two. Then Ally tugged on my sleeve and asked if we could leave, because he was getting freaked out. I thought it was all that demonically-Godful iconography that was getting his goat (I've always thought it all pretty scarily demonic, particularly when it's Catholic; it never feels particularly soft or loving or good). But anyway, it turned out it was the happy people that were doing his head in. Churches should be filled with quietly reverent miserable people, apparently. Anything else just isn't right. He was brought up in Calvinist Sunday schools in Scotland, that's his problem. For myself I just find it reassuring that most churchgoers just see it as an excuse to get dressed up and see the family, which is much better than some of the alternatives.

So anyway, we did the following, in super-fast order: Belleville, Les Halles, St Eustache, the Louvre, paddling in the fountains outside the Louvre, Jardin des Tuileries, Place de la Concorde, government buildings (can't remember the name - something like Assemblee Nationale?), Hotel des Invalides, Montparnasse, La Closerie des Lilas (a shockingly expensive bar where Trotsky used to drink - very beautiful, but not the best choice as one of the few places we went inside), Palais de Luxembourg and its lovely gardens, and a free art expo in one of its buildings (rather good), St Sulpice, Sorbonne, Notre Dame, Sacre Coeur, Montmartre, Pigalle, Moulin Rouge (outside not in), Belleville.

Walking a lot is very good for your calf muscles, but not so great if you've put weight on and are wearing a skirt. Two words: Chafing thighs. Ouch.

Then on Sunday we were hungover after drinking tons of wine in Montmartre, so we trugged desultorily around one floor of the Pompidou, then went and played Backgammon in Parc de Belleville and ate in a great little cafe/bar in Belleville. Oh, and we lost each other whilst searching for Pont des Suicides (Suicide Bridge, which is apparently where people have been known to kill themselves even when they weren't planning to) and I thought Ally had been seized with an uncharacteristic nihilism. But he hadn't. So that was all right.

Oh arse, it's time to pick Felix up already. Many thanks to Petite for letting us use her studio - Belleville is a great place to stay. Oh, and Tadpole is even more adorable than you'd think she would be, and a joy to read bedtime stories to.

Truax Here Again

Thomas Truax (internationally renowned bonkers musician) (and his home-made bonkers instruments) is on at Night and Day cafe in Manchester on Saturday night. Yay! Haven't seen him for ages. He'll be staying at ours afterwards, natch. It's a little hobby of ours - kidnapping interesting people.

Of course, I could say that the above paragraph was there to reassure you how lovely he is and persuade you to come to the gig. But no, it was just me showing off. Plus ca change and all that.

'the real excitement begins when Truax leaps onstage and, together with
these larger-than-life contraptions, rattles through a wild set full of
vivid, surrealist imagery, electric showmanship, and a sound that’s lost
in cloud cuckoo land...
“I sometimes think there must be something beyond my own ideas – I
really think that that junk gramophone horn and I were meant to come
together at some point. Melded together at the ears, somehow.” '


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Desperate Housewife

I am a big Desperate Housewives fan. I rarely miss an episode. I think it's great. Apart from the Mary-Thingummy voiceover, particularly the dreadful wrapping-everything-up-neatly bit they do at the end of every episode. Ugh. It would be soooo much better without that.

But anyway. I think I must have missed an episode when I was in Wales, because I seem to be missing something.

The last thing I knew, Brie's husband's mum had planted a velvet bag up a ladder in an attempt to break Brie's neck (she thought it was full of teeth) (if you never watch DH and are now intrigued, you should be. It's great!), and Brie was in hospital, and Brie's kids didn't trust Brie's husband any more cos they thought she'd tried to kill him. And we'd just found out Brie's husband's mum killed that woman Mike was accused of killing. And now... nothing! What has happened to Brie, Brie's husband, Brie's kids, Brie's husband's ex-wife, Brie's husband's mum? Wasn't Brie's husband's ex-wife locked up in an attic? Didn't she fall out of a window? How come nobody's talking about it? And what happened to Brie's daughter being pregnant by the estate agent's nephew? And where has the other teenager gone? Mike's ex-girlfriend's daughter?

OK, so I don't know anybody's name. But I still follow it semi-religiously. Honest. I just have a crap memory.

So can anyone fill me in?


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Running on Empty

My blog-friend Jane Henry, who blogs at Maniac Mum and is lovely, has a book coming out soon, about running the London marathon.



Anyway, she's holding a launch party for the book in the run-up to the marathon on Sunday, over here. Starting today. Go and join in - you might even get virtual canapes.


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My Day Out

My memory is crap at the best of times, but over the last couple of weeks what little brains I had have been converted to mushy peas, so I've already managed to forget what made me laugh last night.

Something slapstickery made me guffaw last night, and reminded me of my day out with Looby on Sunday, and I thought, "ooh, I know, I'll write a blog post about both these funny things." But I can only remember one of them. Oh well.

So, me and Looby were wandering around barefooted on Crosby beach, admiring the Anthony Gormley statues. Oh, and by the way, he was just like I thought he'd be: thoughtful, attentive, intelligent, interesting. And he got the sympathy / no sympathy balance just right. But anyway. There we were on the beach, like this:

Oh. I was going to put a pic of me and a statue here, but Looby's removed it from his site, and I've lost the email he sent me, and... Argh, see? My head is full of green goop. Oh well, I s'pose I'll have to link the really unflattering one. The one that makes me look like somebody's mad auntie. Oh. I am somebody's mad... ah feck it, just look at the photo:



Well, anyway. It wasn't all sand. It looked like it was, but it wasn't. We were just happily trotting into a wet bit when suddenly we were both going "Eurgh!" and doing a sort of dance that involved lifting our now-rather-disgusting-feet in the air very quickly and then plunging them back down again in an effort to escape, but each new footstep brought us deeper into this horrible brown sticky clayish substance, that also had a brown sheen on the surface that looked suspiciously sewage-like, and if it wasn't sewage it was Nasty Chemicals from the big industrial-looking thing a few hundred yards away...

So there we were.

*squelch*

"Ugh!"

*splat*

"Eek!"

*squelch splat*

"Ugheek!"

And lots of jilted dance/running-away movements, like a pair of demented flamingoes who'd taken too much speed and were dancing to the beat of a pneumatic drill.

And the joke didn't fade. Later on it happened again, only this time I'd chosen a mud-free route and only Looby was afflicted. I kept trying to say, "It's better over here," but it came out more like, "It - hahaha, 'spetter..." [splutter] "'spetrovahere!" [folds in on herself in uncontrollable laughter]

So, anyway. Y'know. The statues were all right, too.




Update: I found the slightly-more-flattering photo:




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Shaggy Blog Stories

Hmmm. Well, I was going to do a kind of review of the Shaggy Blog Stories book, but then I realised that if I started describing individual entries, you might be able to go find them on people's blogs, instead of buying the book and reading it.

And anyway, it would have taken me forever if I'd done it that way. And I haven't had breakfast yet.



So instead I'll just tell you it's a genuinely funny book. And I'm not just saying that because I'm in it. After all I don't get any royalties from it, so the only benefit to me is as an advert for this blog. But if you're here now reading this, you already know about my blog. So. Anyway. What was I saying? Oh, yes. It's a funny book, it's for charity, and I actually-genuinely-really laughed out loud several times when I read it. Here are the people who made me chuckle:

Troubled Diva,
Little Red Boat,
The Overnight Editor,
Scaryduck***,
Kitchentable,
Pandemian,
JonnyB's Private Secret Diary,
Dan Flynn's Blog,
The World of Yaxlich,
My Blog Ate My Homework,
Everything Is Electric,
I Am Livid,
Office Space,
The Cartoon Blog,
Just A Blog.

If I had any sense at all, I would have made the list of laugh-out-louders as I was reading the book, but I didn't. I thought it would be all right cos I was going to write this post as soon as I finished reading it, but I forgot that life always gets in the way of plans like that. Anyway, the point is that I may have missed some out. So if you're sitting there right now feeling all outraged and thinking, "Why hasn't she mentioned me? Mine was the funniest thing in that book!" then it was probably just an administrative accident.

But anyway, even the ones that didn't make me laugh out loud were mostly funny, and well worth reading. So there. Go buy it.


*** P.S. Scaryduck deserves a special mention, as not only did I laugh out loud, I practically wet myself. It was the slapstick. I love slapstick. Which reminds me...


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Jackie Magazine

There was a programme on BBC2 just now about Jackie Magazine, which I used to read - not when I was a teenager, which is who it was supposedly aimed at - but when my big sister was adolescent, in the 70s. When I hit puberty myself, I graduated to The Beano, which is really designed for 9-yr-old boys, and gives you some idea of what a weirdo I am.

Anyway, the whole thing reminded me of my 1985 diary. I transcribed an entry a week ago, but it seemed inappropriate to post it and then I forgot all about it. Coming up...


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Alabama 3 (again)

The Alabama 3 are asking if they can be my friend! On MySpace, I mean.

But how did they know I exist?

They already have over 3000 friends. Seems a little greedy to me.


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Gay's the Word Bookshop in Trouble

Gay’s the Word bookshop in London is in trouble. I did a reading there once - it's a lovely place, and has been around as long as I can remember (I also remember going there on a trip to London when I was 16, and had just come out).

Details straight from the horse's mouth:

"Dear Friend of Gay's The Word,

We've got some good news, and we've got some bad news. Some time ago we asked for your vote to nominate us for the Independent Bookshop of the Year 2007 Competition. Your wonderful response resulted in us getting longlisted, and we're delighted to announce that we've now reached the Regional Shortlist. It's a fantastic achievement and we're really thrilled. A huge 'thank you' to everybody who voted for us.

It's somewhat ironic that this news comes through as we are finding it an increasing struggle to cope financially. The bad news is that after 28 years of trading, we're looking at possible closure in the next few months. Some of you may have seen the excellent recent article in The Times which highlighted the problem.

A combination of pressures including the Internet, rising rents, and the availability of some LGBT books in mainstream bookshops have all played their part. Fundamentally, it comes down to the fact that just not enough people are buying their books here anymore. Independent bookstores across the UK are having a difficult time but there isn't a bookstore in the country that has our unique range of titles. We think it would be a real pity if Gay's The Word, the oldest and only surviving independent gay and lesbian bookstore in the whole country, had to close.

We are, of course, much more than just a bookstore and also function as a community resource. Hundreds of people visit the shop every week to collect free papers, look at our notice board and pick up leaflets of interest. A number of discussion and support groups also have free use of the space for their meetings. We're often the first point of contact for lesbians and gays new to London or coming to terms with their sexuality. It is perhaps this somewhat invisible aspect of what we do that we are saddest to see in jeopardy. We have tried to create a safe, non-threatening, non-judgemental space where people can come and browse, ask questions and get help and advice or just buy a book or card.

To survive in the 21st century we need to adapt and change. We have lots of ideas of how we might face these new challenges. These range from changing our structure so that we can access funding for some of our work, acquiring charity status, updating our computer systems so that we can establish a strong web presence to renovating the shop and developing our downstairs space as a resource for community events.

But to implement these longer-term ideas and initiatives we have to survive our present crisis. So how can you help?

Most important is that we get word out about our predicament. We ask you to forward this message on to ten people, or anyone you know who you think should know (i.e. influential or well-heeled investors). It would be a tragedy if Gay's The Word closed down due to the fact that people are simply unaware of our existence or the difficulties we are experiencing. So we ask you to spread the word: by e-mail, by phone, at the water-cooler, in the bars, clubs, cottages, saunas. wherever.

Support us! Five ways you can help support Gay's The Word:

You can come into the shop and buy one (or two, or three) of our fabulous books.

You can pick one (or as many as you like) of one of our current top-ten titles, listed below, and order it.

You can send us a donation (cheques payable to GTW), or call up with your card details.

You can sponsor a shelf for £100. You will become an official 'Friend of Gay's The Word' and your name will be officially listed as such in-store. We are calling this our 'Cash For Honours' promotion.

You can order a copy of the Gay's The Word documentary film, which screened at last year's London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival at the NFT, for £10.

We believe in our importance, relevance and future. We believe many people do. If you're one of them, then lend us your support. Help save Gay's The Word. Where there's a will, there's a way.

Our Current Top Ten Recommended Books:

Queer London by Matt Houlbrook - The award-winning social history of the gay metropolis, 1918-1957. £13

Bitter Eden by Tatamkhulu Afrika - An extraordinary novel set in a WWII prisoner-of-war camp that explores the themes of masculinity and desire. £11.99

My Undoing by Aiden Shaw - The hugely frank memoir about life and love in the thick of sex, drugs, pornography and prostitution. £8.99

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters - An astonishing novel set against the turbulent backdrop of wartime Britain from our favourite lesbian author. £7.99

Unspeakable Love by Brian Whitaker - A powerful and compelling insight into gay and lesbian life in today's Middle East. £14.99

When Dreams Tremble by Radclyffe - Another gripping and seductive lesbian romance set in upstate New-York from the prolific and hugely popular award-winning author. £11.99

Swimming in the Monsoon Sea by Shyam Selvadurai - the tale of the first love of a 14 year-old boy, set in 1980's Sri Lanka during the monsoon season. From the best-selling author of 'Funny Boy'. £8.95

Skin Lane by Neil Bartlett - His first novel for a decade, Bartlett has devised 'a fiendishly taut little psycho-shocker' about a quiet man who is pushed over the edge. £10.99

Biceps of Death by David Stukas - A sexy, catty and downright hilarious gay detective novel. If you like Armistead Maupin, you'll love Stukas. £9.99

Drag King Dreams by Leslie Feinberg - The long-awaited novel about love and struggle in post-9/11 New York from the Trans activist and author of 'Stone Butch Blues'. £10.99

Orders can be made by phone, post or e-mail. Contact details below.

Many thanks,
Jim & Uli

Gay's The Word
Lesbian & Gay Bookshop
66 Marchmont Street
London WC1N 1AB

Russell Square Underground
Tel: +44-020-7278 7654
email: sales@gaystheword.co.uk
www.gaystheword.co.uk

Open: Mon - Sat 10am - 6.30pm, Sun 2pm - 6pm

We send Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans and Queer books all over the world. We accept most major credit cards, cheques and postal orders. Postage & Packing UK 15 %. Europe 20% Rest of the World 25%"


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Nuggets, number three

"Britain's own version of Falling Down"

"Outlaw, a tale of vigilante violence, will upset Left and Right. That's how it should be, says director Nick Love."

I haven't seen it, and I confess I know very little about it, but I promised I'd plug it. It came out on 9th March, so as far as I know it's in a cinema near you right now. I'm going to have to go see it myself, now that I've promoted it so blindly, so I'll let you know what I think.


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Nuggets, number two

A friend of mine has been involved in setting up a very useful website indeed.

It's called LocalBookShops.co.uk and it's a way of finding your nearest independent book shop.

No, it does more than that. It also allows you to order books from your local bookshop, and the stock they have available is the same as any other online ordering service.

Many shops will ask you to pick your ordered books up in person, but that way you get to browse a proper bookshop, and there's a lot to be said for that.

Support your local independent book shop! They have a lot going for them, and initiatives like this help to prevent them being swallowed up by competition from the big guys.


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Nuggets, number one

More bile and spitting about Observer Woman Magazine. Funny as ever.

Incidentally, 'Spitting Mad' is also 'Jane', from this post here (the one about getting the panther on the motorway in the fog), and has added her own postscript to the whole experience here.


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Buy A Word

Miss Tickle is selling words!

I just bought six of them. Because I wanted to make a sentence. I didn't have much spare time and couldn't be bothered working out a clever sentence in advance, so I just scanned my eye along the text until I came up with something. I don't know what it means. They were just words that jumped out at me: "The filling is swimming in flesh".

It's all in aid of a theatrical thing, so by buying a word you get to patronise the arts. And own a word! Or six. How ace is that?

Go here to join in.

Now, what shall I do with my words? First of all, I shall demand free use of my local swimming baths, or else threaten to repossess the word above the door, which they clearly stole from me.

And then I might stroll down to the local baker's and take a look at their fillings...


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Mini Shots

Vignette Press has launched Mini Shots, a new concept magazine series. Each magazine contains one short story only, the perfect size to slip into your pocket for when you need a quick injection of fiction.

Simon Groth is the author of Mini Shots issue #001 : Coda, and seeing as Virtual Literary Tours seem to be all the rage at the moment, I agreed to interview him. Well, sort of. I only asked him one question, but it was a good question - and a good answer:


You have a choice of superpower:

(1) The ability to travel backwards in time, to any point you like, whenever you like.
(2) Invisibility.
(3) The ability to read minds.
(4) Immortality.

Which do you choose, and what do you do with it once you've got it?


"Let's see, I have to think about this logically.

I don't think I could do immortality, although it would be interesting to see what happens after the sun becomes a supernova and swallows half the solar system. Immortality or not, how the hell do you survive that? Do you become a floating blob of consciousness in the endlessness of space? And then what do you do with all that time? You sit around, waiting for something to happen no doubt. Imagine an immortal at a party. It would be like inviting a glacier.

Do I really want to read minds? I mean really? This may sound a little harsh, but I'm not that interested in half the things I hear people actually say. Imagine having to listen to all those irritating internal conversations. I could imagine sitting quietly on a bus before exploding at a girl sitting opposite me: "Just ask him out already and stop yabbering on about it!" Despite this, the ability to read minds would be handy at job interviews. Or at a meeting of the UN Security Council.

If I could travel backwards in time, I might actually make it to work on time. It might also save me from those occasions where I instantly regret having hit the "Reply All" button. Otherwise I think this power may be problematic. Does time travel also imply travelling in space as well? If not, I don't have any bush survival skills, so getting stuck in Australia before the nineteenth century would be suicide. No cool stuff like meeting Galileo or Genghis Khan when you're stuck in pre-colonial Brisbane scrubland.

So it must be invisibility. Come to think of it, invisibility would be a most useful power for the writer who frequently says: "Oh, to be fly on the wall." So how much better to be a fly on the wall who could freak people out? Pull chairs out from people about to sit down and other such hilarious japes. The possibilities are endless. I could really overhear uncensored conversations for use in my fiction. I could find out what really happens when you send a meal back at a restaurant. I could never again pay for a movie."


Like this? Follow Simon Groth on his virtual wanderings this week as he visits blogs around the world to chat about life, the short story, indie publishing, writing, getting published and more…
Next stop: Wed 14/02/07 - Small Press Blog.


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Words

Words, words, everywhere. Splurging, spewing forth, falling out of pockets, between cracks in pavements, on heads, under toes.

I can't keep them in, can't keep them out, can't make them when I want, can only just make them how I want. And here I am, yet again, middle of the night, Asian Dub Foundation and Rage Against the Machine pounding in my ears, basslines blocking me in, earphones plugging me up and blocking me out.

I don't like that. The way earphones close you in on yourself.

My sound systems have never kept up with my house. I've fought a constant battle to have loud music in every room, but I keep adding more rooms. It's not fair. Ally gets the 600W PA in his study, and all I'm left with is a plastic portable radio. Hence the earphones. Plugging me in, blocking me out.

It's as though there were a natural flow, in and out through the side of the head. Breathe through your ears. Only I can't, because Sennheiser has them well and truly filled in, sealed off, blasted with bass beats and loud noise.

The blasting I like, I just wish it could come from further afield.

I want to blast the neighbours, too.


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Alabama 3

“For whatever reason you refuse to feel this space we’re in. To know its insanity, really know it. Whatever your particular anaesthetic is, that you hold onto so desperately. The thing I mean that makes you think you know who you are. Whatever that thing is, you allow to keep you sane. Your ace in the hole. The psyche that keeps you from trying to guess at what your pimp has in store for you. Whatever keeps you from screaming out at this very moment in absolute and sheer horror, whatever you fuck your brain with, whatever that is, whatever that is... it’s a lie. It’s a lie!”

from Peace in the Valley, by the Alabama 3.

I want to tell you about the Alabama 3, because they’ve been spending so much time in my ears of late.

I have four Alabama 3 albums on my iPod, which gives me 50 tracks - and I like every one of them, which means I can happily set my iPod to Shuffle, select Alabama 3, turn the volume up and get on with a whole chunk of writing.

Whenever people ask questions like, “What’s your favourite book?” I panic, because although I know there are books I particularly like, just as there are places, games, artists, bands etc - I just don’t hold that kind of hierarchical information in my head. Even when I absolutely love something, I still forget about it if it’s not constantly brought to mind.

But I think the Alabama 3 probably really are my favourite band ever.

It helps that we vaguely know them, but to be honest I see that as an extremely happy coincidence - that we’ve had several opportunities to meet My Favourite Band Ever.

It was when me and Ally first met, and his ex-flatmate’s boyfriend’s mate was in the band. So, Ally’s ex-flatmate’s boyfriend was always going on about how wonderful they were. A bunch of anarchic party animals from Brixton, they were apparently great live.

Yeah, right. Everybody’s best mate is in a band, and they’re always the best thing since sliced bread. You take these things with a pinch of salt. But then one by one our friends got dragged along to one of their gigs, and started saying the same thing.

I think My Very First Alabama 3 gig might have been in The Academy in Manchester. By this time half our friends had become mates with them, one of my girlfriends had shagged at least one of them (there are more than three of them), and we all ended up back at her flat, where Jake (aka D Wayne... or is it Larry Love? I always get them mixed up, even though they’re nothing like each other. No. Jake is D Wayne) held court on her bed, discussing philosophy, politics, art, Elvis, whatever.

I still cringe when I think of the time I insisted on singing at them backstage at Mcr University Union. They were very nice about it. This was when I had the idea I could sing, and in typical overly-ambitious fashion imagined that I could be catapulted into stardom from a smoky backstage room. Ally and I had formed a (very very) amateur band, and we talked enthusiastically with Piers - the musical brains of the outfit - about bass lines and backing tracks.

We performed cover versions of Peace in the Valley and Speed of the Sound of Loneliness (not written by them, but made very much their own) at our friends’ wedding. We were the Official Wedding Band. That was our biggest gig.

My favourite two Alabama 3 stories:

(1) There was the time we shaved Ally’s hair off.

One of the things which makes the Alabama 3 special is their stage show. They don’t emphasise it so much these days, but they used to do this whole evangelising routine, where Reverend D Wayne would preach from the stage, and convert members of the audience to the First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine (UK), all the time being smiled down upon by a gigantic poster of VI Lenin (and very likely playing samples of original recordings of Reverend Jim Jones, he of the Kool-Aid fame).

So the plan was that they would grab Ally from the audience and shave all his hair off, live on stage. Ally had very long hair, you see. Long shiny red locks. But he was bored of it and wanted to give a skinhead a try.

They were up for it, and negotiations were afoot. Unsurprisingly on the night itself nobody was organised enough to make it happen, so we had a head-shaving party in our garden instead. But it happened in our imaginations - and that was enough.

(2) I think it was V.

One of those awful corporate festivals that happen somewhere near Leeds and make people camp outside the main arena. We didn’t go, but our friend Pete - who hadn’t yet met the Alabama 3 and was still - like us - sceptical about how great they were - was performing. He went to the ticket office to pick up his pass, and found it crammed full of argumentative people, all wearing sunglasses, claiming to be members of the Alabama 3 and wanting free passes.

“So what do you do then?” some harrassed festival admin asked a big burly guy with tattoos. “I stand on the stage,” he said. “Occasionally I move a mike stand.”

When Pete saw them live for the first time the next day, Big Burly Man stood at the edge of the stage, shades on, arms folded throughout the performance - apart from when he occasionally moved a mike stand.


I had a crush on Orlando, aka The Spirit Of Love. He was all white-haired and wispy with big staring eyes, just like a real spirit. I used to gaze at him from in front of the stage and try to catch his eye. I never exchanged a single word with him.

We haven’t been to an Alabama 3 gig for ages. We’re all old and sensible these days. But given that my current book mentions Jim Jones, I’m wondering whether I can’t find some way of working them into it. Apart from anything else, I’m going to have to stick that quote from the beginning of this post in the front of my book (it fits the book, as well as being great). I don’t know whether the words were written by Jake or The Reverend Jim Jones (I suspect they belong to Jake).

Whenever I mention The Alabama 3, somebody always says, “Oh yeah, I’ve met them!” They’re like this giant band of roaming partygoers, making friends and blagging freebies wherever they go. Go on. If you’ve met them too, say hello in the comments box. Let’s see how many we can get.


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Dubious Poetry

I’m disproportionately fond of this poem I wrote using my mum’s Magnetic Poetry fridge magnets:

Sweat drool in storms
And lick your chain
With size of need
Your rain

And OK, so I don’t have much clue what it means. Or rather, I have several ideas what it might mean, and you could probably give me several more.

The water element, for a start. Sweat, drool, lick, rain. Lovely.

I don’t care about pinning it down. I just like it.


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