I'm quite cross-eyed from reading my way through Joanne Harris's 'blueeyedboy' with only the briefest of interruptions. It's blasphemous to be indoors on the first day for two weeks that the sun has shone steadily with not a rain-cloud in sight, but blossoming rape fields (bringers of sneezing, runny eyes, feverish shivers,) and an unreliable car make good excuses. 

I didn't enjoy 'beb' at all. It is sinister, disturbing, confusing to small-brained and lazy individuals on their Sunday off,  and there is hardly one sympathetic character to be met in the 500+ pages, but it held me with a horrid fascination. JH's prose is very rewarding:

'And fiction is a tower of glass built from a million tiny truths, grains of sand fused together to make a single gleaming lie….'

 I would really like to have thought of that image myself.

As a reader I prefer it when writers create characters that reappear in a long run of books. Crime writers do that with their detectives, (gum shoes, nosey-but-sharp old ladies etc.) Novelists not so much. I like to be able to rely on these characters to have certain eccentricities, reliable personal traits that eventually make them as real to me as friends and family. I like being admitted regularly to the world that evolves around them.

On the other hand I can make an exception for writers who consistently entertain, like Joanne Harris. She's a story-teller who enjoys her flights of fancy. I heard her say that no-one should set out to become a writer with money in mind. They have to really enjoy the writing for its own sake or they may as well not bother. I've always got the feeling she enjoys her fictions and her enjoyment helps make the results entertaining.

From the 'Acknowledgements' it does sound as if she found this tale rather less easy to tell than some and a bit complicated to unravel, which I can sympathise with. I'm still not sure who dunnit all, or who was about to do it. Humiliating.

The last acknowledgement gave me a bit of a shiver too (now I've read the book): 'to the man in Apartment 7 whose voice was in my mind from the start.'  

I hope I never meet him.

Our brave, but mostly unseen, police covered themselves with glory this week. After a break-in at two  neighbouring shops (small shop spaces, a tiny area for tea-making facilities, toilet etc. they helpfully stood guard whilst the broken windows were boarded over  - with the burglar inside!! He escaped later by breaking through one of the unboarded windows. As one Facebook follower remarked 'You couldn't make it up.'

I've spent two days crouched over my laptop editing 'Folk Tales of the North'  a project far from finished and needing a more interesting title. In between the pedestrian editing and reorganising, I've trawled for publishers who might be interested in putting out a slim volume of stories. This has lead me to a few conclusions. 

A: There are so many thousands (millions?) of writers out there that I have the same instinct as I had once when arriving in Oxford on a bus from the suburbs: 'Too many people on that pavement. No room for me. I'll just stay on this bus and be taken back again.' A friend who was born and bred in New Zealand remarked that Ngaio Marsh, a national treasure in NZ, probably wouldn't even have been published in Britain. As she succinctly put it, 'Over here she would have been killed in the rush.'

Nowadays we wannabe authors are all killed in the rush. Unless we are really, really, determined self-publicists, or have created something the reading public are hungry for, or (and for more on this one see below) the publishing houses THINK the reading public are hungry for). 

B: Most small publishing houses are struggling in these straightened times and therefore aren't going to be interested in what I have to offer which is of purely local interest. Or is it? 90% of the hits on one or two popular stories are from the USA. So there's a strategy, if I have the courage.

C: It's quite energising getting indignant about stuff. Here is a list of facets of publishing that have absolutely nothing to do with me but that get right up my nose.

Here are just a few: 

*  Publishers of children's books who believe children have the attention spans of gnats on amphetamine. (At least that one has been disproved by JKR. If they enjoy a book children will want it to go on and on, just like the rest of us.)

*  Reviewers on Amazon who DO have the attention spans of gnats on amphetamine. (Some reviewers are very good so, once I've discounted the ones I think might be family, friends, editors, or gnats, I do read them.)

* Publishers of children's books who call children 'kids'. It isn't cool. It doesn't convince anyone they are cool publishers, least of all the 'kids.'

*  Publishers of children's books who think 'kids' want 'real life' stuff they can 'relate to'. It should have a girl heroine, preferably black or maybe a Muslim with a non-Muslim as best friend so that being a Muslim, Jew, Hindu, Christian etc. can be explained. The heroine must get raped/pregnant/be in a war zone, have an abortion, be abused. If it's a boy the same sort of thing applies, with bullying as a very popular choice of misery. 

Note to publishers: Children like fantasy and escapism just like the rest of us, especially all those growing up in a dreary inner city location. Why not give them more pleasure instead of rubbing their noses in the drabness of their daily live? The nasty bits can be encapsulated within an adventure without it being the focal point of the adventure. Harry P is 'different' and gets stick for it. Ron Weasley' s family is poor and he has to wear secondhand clothes to the Ball. Hermione is super brainy so isn't popular. None of these disadvantages have anything to do with the story. They give the characters extra humanity, and every day, ordinary, challenges that they have to live with but they don't  get in the way of the action.

* Anyone commenting on articles, letters, or reviews online who mistakes sarcasm for sparkling intelligence and wit.

* Web sites that I wish to contribute to or buy from or ask a question of, which have 'Intelligent Fields' that get me to fill in forms, leading me by the nose until I've nearly crossed the magic portal, then abruptly whisk me back to the beginning to fill in Idiot Fields I have already scrupulously filled.

* Authors who die before I've had enough of them. (Reginald Hill for instance. Great loss.)

* Writer's who feed religion into their novels. To be honest I'm complaining about one specific writer here: Susan Hill. I feel she sees herself as missionary, slipping the religion in sideways along with the gift boxes.  Exception: Phil Rickman for whom the supernatural and belief systems relating to other dimensions are necessarily intertwined. 

*  People who criticise books and poems for not being 'tight' enough. This needs explaining for a start. Does it mean the author should have been more inebriated when s/he wrote the piece? Does it mean the piece was too long? Should some of the adjectives and adverbs be deleted? I understand the need to refine poems, and I dislike too may adjectives and adverbs, so can agree with the latter. A common fault of the novice like myself. On the other hand I do like novels to flow rather than fire rounds of bullets at me. I like sentences of more than six words, and words of more than two syllables, when appropriate. I also like very long novels.

It's just an over-used form of critique that means nothing any longer IMO. As is being, or not being, 'accessible'. 

* Publishers who republish books under a new title. Dastardly. I was caught out with a re-named Agatha Christie once. I've never forgiven myself.

*  Children's publishers who think children need fancy 'interactive' gizmos to get them to read - or, what is more likely, will get the parents to buy on the off-chance that the garish illustrations, pop-outs, pull-ups, wheels and so forth will get their children to suddenly want to read Dickens.

*  Children's publishers who think that naughty words like 'poo' and 'fart' will sell books.

I could go on but that's enough bile for one day. Publishers are having a tough time of it and are doing their best to keep books as a feature of our society so I really dislike grumpy old grannies who moan about them……

Sometimes I wonder if I'm spending more on supplements than on food!

In the not-so-distant past I would have had no truck with these (except perhaps the Aloe Vera which has been a friend for many years.) Now I spend 5 hours a day serving people with supplements and it seems natural to join them. I do feel better for them. I think. Anyway I don't pick up every germ that wafts at me from the other side of the counter - and they are legion.

Begin forwarded message:


GOLFING IN IRELAND

One fine day in Ireland, a bloke is out golfing and gets up to the 16th
hole. He tees up and cranks one.

Unfortunately, it goes into the woods on the side of the fairway. He goes
looking for his ball and comes across this little guy with this huge knot on
his head and the golf ball lying right beside him.

"Goodness," says the golfer, and proceeds to revive the poor little guy.
Upon awakening, the little guy says, "Well, you caught me fair and square; I
am a leprechaun. I will grant you three wishes."

The man says, "I can't take anything from you, I'm just glad I didn't hurt
you too badly," and walks away.

Watching the golfer depart, the leprechaun thinks, "Well, he was a nice
enough guy and he did catch me so I have to do something for him. I'll give him
the three things that I would want -- unlimited money, a great golf game
and a great sex life."

A year passes and the same golfer is out golfing on the same course at the
16th hole. He gets up and hits one into the same woods, goes looking for his
ball and comes across the same leprechaun. He asks the leprechaun how he is
and the leprechaun replies: "I'm fine, and might I ask how your golf game
is?"

The golfer says "It's great! I hit under par every time."

The leprechaun says, "I did that for you. And how is your money holding
out?"

The golfer says, "Well, now that you mention it, every time I put my hand
in my pocket, I pull out a hundred dollar bill."

The leprechaun smiles and says, "I did that for you. too. And how is your
sex life?"

The golfer looks at him shyly and says, "Well, maybe once or twice a week."

The leprechaun is floored and stammers, "Once or twice a week?"

The golfer, a little embarrassed, looks at him and says, "Well, that's not
too bad for a Catholic priest in a small parish."

For once I had a Saturday night out to see 'The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, for the Elderly, and Beautiful.' The cinema was packed with people of a certain age and I wonder how many left contemplating their dull existence and wondering if they too should decamp to India, or elsewhere, to eke out their pensions in a more fun way and a warmer climate. I did - just for a moment or two!


I think I was a little disappointed by it although it was warm, gentle, funny,  touching, colourful, all good ingredients, and the impressive cast of doyennes (there must be a masculine version for that word?)  of stage and screen gave their reliably good value. The script was unadventurous but they did their best with it. I still wonder why Maggie Smith had to change her accent; her gentile Edinburgh burr could have been roughened up a bit and served perfectly well; it was weird hearing her speak a sort of Thames Estuary/Essex. 


We had a curry afterwards because it seemed appropriate but I am regretting it right now.

I get no comments on my other blogs and don't expect any. I keep stuff there because when the desktop iMac died (and I discovered too late that I hadn't been backing up properly) I would have lost everything. What didn't occur to me was that people might be reading them. Just now I noticed that there  have been 557 page view on one local folk tale!