Like Sliding Doors...

“…but several shades more complex and interesting.”

Joe Ford’s kind, spoilerific review of Time Travellers is nice. As were The Settling’s cast. Clive Mantle is brilliant - and my mum’s terribly envious I got to meet him. Another member of the cast lives next door to where I met the Doctor. Weird. Blurb will follow soon – about to write it now.

Game was fun yesterday, though I rather backed myself into a corner by being “just the driver”. Imagine Han Solo, only Luke hasn’t convinced him to care… Difficult to make a conspiracy thrilling when my motivation is not to care. Kudos to G. for making it work despite this.

Dead early this morning I stumbled through some stuff about the English language with 72 Swedish kids. Not sure if they looked bored ‘cos they couldn’t understand me, or because they could. Best question was “Why should we learn English?”

Hmm… well, it’s a well-spread language and world leader and blah. But what seemed to go down well (if not with the teachers) is that you don’t need a lot of English to be understood. I mean, Sin speaks – and teaches – English with a thick Burnley accent, and half the time I’ve no idea what he’s saying. Aaaaah.

Sin's victors

Greetings from chilly Sweden. The Deniz birthday proceeds well, though the central heating, eating and drinking means I am quite dozy. Staying up nattering till 3 and 4am has not helped.

Still, my team won the games yesterday - due álmost entirely to one good hand of Top Trumps. Learnt lots of top facts and made new friends. Much discussion of Star Wars - like is Tack mentioned on screen - and our host's godawful taste in tunes.

Am not very good at Quoridor. Nor at Swedish keyboards which have odd ö and ä and å keys where I want apostrophes and things. Sörry about odd accents and stuff. Gah.

Tomorrow I am Star Wars role-playing. Not rped for years and years, but think I recall the method. Am going to be a Mon Calamari, of course.

Missing the Doctor, though she has been keeping busy doing painting and house chores. Wonder if there's anything left to drink...

Out, just out

Loads to cram in tonight…

Lively do on Tuesday, Gaiman discussing the intrinsic joy of stories, and how without them – and asking “what if?” – we’d all still be mooking about the African savannah, waiting for animals to drop dead so we could eat them.

Gothier, freakier audience than for Fry, and a much better quality of question. Notably, there were no stalkers, or “me and my opinion” bores. The nearest was a bloke politely enquiring if he might get a second question… Naw.

I’d heard many of the stories before through the blog, but it’s fun to hear them out loud, and with someone beside me who doesn’t know, for example, of the melty-eyed Muppets in Hampstead.

Gaiman also talked about the use of blogging; keeping the brain limber, engaging with ideas. See, it’s not merely for parrying real work. Honest.

Lenny Henry, who was there to read from Anansi Boys (which he’d got the ball rolling on a thousand years ago by muttering that horror never has any black people in it), laughed at a question about whose universe would get used if Gaiman and Joss Whedon teamed up. Gaiman laughed back: Henry’s a comic-reading geekboy, bad as the rest of us, and all-too-versed in other people’s universes…

(Not sure “universe” – meaning entirely everything – is the right word, ‘cos you can’t have more than one entirely-everything. Nor is “parallel” the right term either. “Parallel worlds” tend to be the same but different, where one choice made the place go a different way. But parallels don’t intersect… “Branches” is probably best, and cf. chapter 9 of my bloody book.)

Gaiman lives a really enviable life as an author – it’s endearing how little there is that he doesn’t like or isn’t interested in. Or, at least, how little he’ll say that’s not keen. Really inspired by his enthusiasm for all manner of anything. “Research” is an excuse to poddle round LA looking at graveyards, a “block” (not a term he likes, he was keen to explain) means beach-time in Barbados, puzzling things out…

Dead envious of Henry, too, who’s read Miracleman #25. Bastard!

There was all kind of name-dropping, as Gaiman’s loved by Tarantino’s mum, wrote some of his book in Tori Amos’s spare house, and couldn’t judge what Angelina Jolie is really like because he had her wearing an all-over, blue, gimp-sort-of suit for reasons of smart CGI…

Yes, I thought. That’s the sort of writerly schmoozing I’d like to get at some day. And then spent yesterday with Sylvester and Sophie and… well, fab actors to be announced soon… Maybe speak of that another time.

After recording yesterday, I fitted a curtain rail and then watched the brilliant Much Ado… Really very lovely indeed. And well done B. for top Toad in the Hole, fruity booze and good cheer.

Much drunken natter ‘bout the Government being whupped. Really, this should have happened at the start of the year – and only didn’t because the other parties dropped the ball. As was said while the Terrorism Bill clogged the Lords, it’s depressing when the only effective opposition in this country is that there Jeremy Paxman…

Ignoring hangovers, today the Doctor got doctored officially, and got to shake hands with Eric Hobsbawm. Finally, school is over. Another graduate, taking her baby with her up on stage, sums up Birkbeck’s zealous championing of the part-time student, juggling research with a full-time life. Bain’t easy. I couldn’t have done what the Doctor did, and am full of awe and pride and amazement.

Looked pretty fit in her hood and felt hat, too.

After cheap fizz and canapés (I had almost three) we and the parents did Persia (v. good, full of detail, and Neil McGregor’s audio-commentary is well-worth picking up), and then tea. Lots of chatting about not much in particular. My dad’s read Time Travellers, and thinks it okay.

Then home, shagged out, to finish chores, pay more money out on new house, decide which questions are to be asked of my team this weekend, pack, snog the mrs, sleep.

Sweden tomorrow morning. Maybe without email (!), hence clearing the decks of stuff now. More Wednesday next week if not sooner.

But a mate has a blog that’s worth reading, and my review of a film is now up.

Out of here.

Happy happy happy

This week is proving rather good. The BBC loves me. I spent a fun day with Dr Who today, and will report on that and last night and things soon. And tomorrow the Doctor becomes, er, a Doctor. I am all skippy.

Oh, and like you care, but this is my 100th post.

Sliced genius

Fun night in the pub last night, seeing chums I’d not seen since, ooh, the weekend. Nabbed a copy of Skillz magazine too, and have spent this morning nursing hangover and trying to get the free radio to work.

Know nada 'bout these new-fangled games – though at one-time deft on Chuckie Egg and Galaga – and have long since wiped the games on my PC for eating up too much of my life. Yet the mag, with insights into snot, explosions and cheatz, had me laughing over my tea. Well done indeed, Mr Joff Brown, editor.

Also rung round places to get the Big Move in motion. Top men with van booked, telephone set up (though we’ll be without landline and – the horror! – broadband for ten days), and the Doctor is sorting various other bits. Buzzing with finally getting things sorted.

Gaiman tonight, shouting tomorrow followed by Toad in the Hole. Proud husbandry Thursday, Persians and tea. And Sweden on Friday, where I’m captaining a team of chums I’ve not met, and am booked to talk to 72 Swedish teenagers about how English works. Lummy. All go, innit?

Right. Shoes and off to work.

ETA: Thing I've just learnt. If you click "Save as draft" and then realise that's not right and click "Publish post", Blogger saves your post, and then publishes a blank one. Gah!

Based on a true story

As chums might have spotted, I like a good yarn.

That doesn’t just mean stories about space-Guardianistas grappling with weird, scary monsters (though those are good too), but anything simply well-told. Growing up, mealtimes were always a story-telling contest with my siblings. Family get-togethers still are, plus a fight for the roast potatoes.

Thing is, I’m now never sure which titbits of knowledge rattling round my brain have any basis in truth.

Anyway, this odd story (which came via Gaiman, who we’re seeing tomorrow) made me think of a story I used to hear a lot when I was little.

In the early 1980s (I guess) this bloke rode round Winchester on a monocycle.

He was – it makes the story better – quite a crazy-looking devil, and not the most careful of cyclists. Monocycles are zippy things and not always easy to control. Whether or not he actually ran anyone down, he eventually wound up in court.

The court listened to the tales of mayhem done and assessments of possible risk, and came up with an elegant solution. The bloke, they decided, couldn't ride his monocycle on public roads because he didn't have a bicycle bell.

And yet this didn't deter the bloke. He just got himself a pair of handlebars – just the handlebars mind, not attached to anything – and stuck a bell on them.

So you'd sometimes see (though I never did) this crazy-looking bloke, zipping about on his monocycle, orphan handlebars stuck out in front of him, frantically ting-a-linging.

Ha ha!

Sadly, Google couldn’t help me verify details, and it’s been so often retold to me, and likely embellished each time that I may have got key bits of it wrong. Will check with parents and see if they remember.

And it’s only typing this up that all seems a bit too much like David McKee's (brilliant) "Mark and the monocycle".

Shopping list

Things I bought yesterday:

• 50x curtain hooks
• Kashmiri woollen rug
• Step ladder (5 steps)
• Haddock, chips and mushy peas x2, plus one pickled egg
• Day's travelcard, zones 1 and 2
• Booze
• Washing up liquid, bin liners, squeedgees, poo paper, milk, biscuits
• Tape measure (quite a funky one)

Obligatory cat post

A chum complains that, despite nearly 100 posts, this bain't be a proper blog 'cos it doesn't boast cat snaps. Very sincere apologies to you all. To remedy this, here's what I had on my phone. Apologies for the murky quality, but they're what I had on my phone.

Homo, ner

A fun night’s pubbing last night, with all sorts of gossip and discussion, and people telling me I am clever. Meant to head off early and do housework, but accidentally made it to the end. So yes, feeling better.

The Doctor arrived back from her conquest of Washington DC first thing this morning. I’ve got presents – America (fab!), and a some light reading on DHTML by Jason Cranford Teague (whose surnames feature in Chapter 9 of Time Travellers, fact fans).

The Doctor slept until 1, then we went out for lunch. During which I had a call to say we’d completed on buying our flat. It’s taken forever, and only a fortnight ago it looked like it wouldn’t happen at all. But it has!

Happiness and joy now abound in our house, and champagne.

Benny and the jets

Big Finish have announced what I've been up to for the last few weeks. Parallel lives (no link yet) and Something changed are at proof stage, and I'm now working on the scripts. Blurbs and details should be forthcoming, and I've already seen a wondrous draft of the Something Changed cover.

(The brilliant Adrian Salmon has also recently set up his own Yahoo! Group, Visual Ade.)

In other news, got the Episode III DVD yesterday, and watched it with curry, I. and B. Delighted to see a Mon Calamari in the deleted scenes - but is it the sainted Ackbar? And why wasn't he in the rest of the film?

(Answer: Ackbar's too much of a dude to let the bad guys win on his watch. He was probably off somewhere, saving orphans with his bare gills.)

The cat was mesmerised by the film's first half hour. I think the Jedis' whirling spacejets appealed to his predatory instincts - and at one point he attacked the TV. Little sod runs out of the room at the Dr Who theme, so this behaviour can be considered an improvement.

Also unearthed a copy of something I wrote in late '99, guessing what Episodes II and III would be like on the basis of Episode I. Gratifying mix of the frighteningly prescient and the god-awfully wrong. Plus some jokes. Thought I'd lost this ages ago, and when B. has kindly scanned it, I'll post it up here.

Crafty writing

Discussion in pub last night of the word "folk". I reckon it means "a bit rubbish": cf. folk music, folk tales, the folk tradition. M'colleague B. argued that it also means people, but I countered (wittily, lithely) that it does when it's means "people are a bit rubbish". For example, the expression, "There's nowt as queer as a bit rubbish people."

And yet, though I'm suspicious of anything arts and crafts, I love Eric Gill's work and his immaculate Sans typeface - and really wish it was one of the HTML fonts. Bought a very good biography of Gill for the Doctor last Christmas (with the message, "Freak-boy! Just your type."), which is boggling, revelatory, and full of great detail.

“[Gill, Johnston and Pepler] had an evening ritual, since all were in the habit of writing late-night letters, of meeting at the post-box (just before the midnight post, that long-lost rendezvous). Johnston’s daughter, when a child, has described how long it took them to get home again to bed, where their three wives, the ‘letter box widows’ as they called themselves, awaited them. They would often go on talking about art and mass production, or maybe faith and reason, until 2 or 3 am.”

Fiona MacCarthy, Eric Gill, p. 67.

Fully booked

Golly, I've been reading Little, Big for more than a month. Apart from Neal Stephenson, this never happens.

Admittedly, I have had lots of other things to read and write - which has taken priority on bus and train journeys, and at evenings and weekends. Also, though, I think the book loses its way a bit in the late-middle. Having set up the marvellously weird and happy family and house, it then spends most of "Book Five" in the city, with Auberon the younger being miserable and drunk and delusional. It's a whole chunk - unlike the rest of the book - that's not fun to read. And staring out at the shops and shoppers on the Walworth Road kept taking precedence.

Anyway, seem to be through that mire now, and into the last 100 pages. Things are hotting up, and (again like Neal Stephenson) there's the feeling that a plot has been going on behind my back all along...

Visually-impaired spots

A day editing, and learning how to do an á on a Mac...

Something you notice editing (which you might not just from writing) is other people's blind spots. Lots of people join up some words, like "anymore" and "allover", while the Doctor is good at separating words like "how ever" and "further more". It's refreshing to know other people make the same sorts of basic error as I do.

Those who've proofed my stuff will know I mix up the homophones you're and your, and their, they're and there. I think this is because I hear the words rather than see them. I've also a gift for transposing numbers.

The thing is to be aware of your own blind spots: if you're checking for them yourself, they're no longer a weakness. Though that implies you re-read what you're writing before sending it in.

Which, editing other people's stuff, you realise isn't what all authors do.

I feel unusual

Wimped out of most of the larking this weekend, ‘cos of feeling like shit. Woke up yesterday with what I thought was a hangover, only far beyond what a few ales should bring on. Despite yacking my guts up, aspirin, Coca-Cola and the good cheer of chums, I still felt miserable and unfunny by the afternoon.

Perhaps I’m getting old, I thought. And then a chum pointed out I had temperature reminiscent of a firestorm. Now think it’s some sort of Horrid Cold – the first of the season. Joy.

Fell home in a bit of a blur, and slept for the rest of the day – bar two excursions to the garden, returning toads the little sod brought in. And R., who I put up in exchange for floor space in Swansea, had to brave the taxis and 363s of South London all on his own. Weird thing about Horrid Colds and Flu is that you look better than you feel, so he probably thought me a right old wuss. No change there, then.

Slept most of today as well, though watched some telly and Star Wars. The Doctor rang from the States, and everything there has gone brilliantly. A well-received paper to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC, no less. She mighty fine, that one. And the sonic screwdrivers she bought for her fan-mate’s kids have gone down a treat. So well done J., who sourced them.

Feeling miserable and missing her, I then did all the washing up I have not done since she left. And put some washing on. I even thought about hoovering.

No trick-or-treaters this year – unless I just slept through them. And the cat seems less freaked by the fireworks. This strikes me as like that bit in horror movies when it’s just too quiet.

Time Travellers has been seen in bookshops, and two paid reviewers tell me they’ve received their copies – so all on tenterhooks now. Meeting tomorrow to finish another book-shaped project, which will get announced in due course. The Settling has been cast, and my mum is delighted. Also – though it’s again got to be announced officially – I seem to be doing a book signing. Gosh.

Phil has typed up his talk on the Spirituality of New Show, and after all my nagging him, I now need to go and read it. So that I can then hack apart his claims for the naïve, superstitious flimflam they must be.

I think I am feeling a bit better…

Cabbage cleans the blood

5,561 usable words written today and sent in, linking together something that’s due to be announced any day now. Woo!

Last night, splendid fellows took me to see What have you done today, Mervyn Day?, with live music by St Etienne. We also had pizza and beer. The film is really interesting, with all sorts of facts and perspectives on the Lea Valley – like no one actually calling it that. And plastic and petrol and the Labour Party were all invented where the Olympic Park will now be. Proper social history, like. Not sure about the blood, but the splendid fellows passed on that cabbage might help with cancer.

It’s been ages since I last saw live music, and this was a corker. Recommend A Good Thing, which is out as a single on Monday. Sarah Cracknell still has the voice of an angel, and looks just as magnificent as she did when I first fancied her in my teens. The Barbican, though, is not built for dancing.

(Probably a good thing as far as my splendid fellows were concerned.)

Have heard from the Doctor, who has arrived, is tired and is missing the cat. Little sod brought me two toads today.

Having done my chores, off now to have some tea, and thence to the pub to begin a weekend of very serious, sober and spiritual reflection as part of a writers conference.

No, really. That’s what it is.

Lies, damn lies

A couple of weeks ago, I signed this blog up to Site Meter, partly 'cos of being curious, and mostly 'cos it was free. And very easy to do, too.

If you're feeling nosy, you can look up my stats (there's also a link at the bottom of the page), and even play with trends and locations and wossnames like that. 17 visitors a day, though, is actually not all that bad.

My current favourite is the "Countries" tab. I think I know who the Finnish and Canadian visitors might be. But Singapore?

And Saudi Arabia?

Well, whatever it is you were looking for, I hope you weren't too disappointed.

Dancing with planks

To see Stephen Fry last night, talking about his new book on poetry. It seems - having heard his excerpts and read up to chapter one – like exactly the sort of thing that would have made my teens very different.

Had the same feeling last year about Bryson’s unravelling of science and Wilson’s vivid, teeming history; books that opened windows in my head. They had me wide-eyed and delighted, buying more copies for everyone’s birthdays, muttering, “Now I get how it works…”

That said, had they been around as I started my A levels, I’d probably not have read them anyway. Studiously ignored the much-spoken of Ways Of Seeing for years. No idea why – it’s quite brilliant.

Fry had lots of interesting things to say – especially so, since they reached through to this entrenched prosodophobe. I’d been coming round to the idea, though, that poetry might have some value. An evangelical chum put some rude and funny verse my way. Then William Goldman compared screenplays to poetry as an exercise in concise writing, nuggets of meaning that can’t be said in any fewer words. Which has been useful in all sorts of ways.

I’ve written scripts of one sort and another, stories and pitches and blurbs, and then there’s the ever-concise copy that pays the rent. But never poetry. Lyrics, a bit. Bits of stories. But a great deal of what clutters the notebooks I’ve been keeping since my teens is bits of phrasing, execrable puns, shufflings and reshufflings of words. And though I bought Fry’s book for the Doctor (as something to take to the States tomorrow), I found myself leafing through it last night until 1 in the morning.

On the value of poetry, Fry cited Wilde, that all art is useless. But he then goes further: that the unnecessary embellishments of life are what make it worth living. We can subsist on food pills and concrete tower blocks, but it deadens us, erodes our social abilities and empathy. Instead, we – the lucky ones – have wine and music and painting, things that rise above the okay, the that’ll-do, the (and it is a pejorative) mediocre. I’m wary of using the term “art”, but by care of our “craft”, we can make stuff we do that much better.

Which is a cosy idea, but not new. It made me think of the Parable of the Talents, where there’s an inherent, moral obligation to make the most of what we’ve got. (Jesus, of course, taught morality through stories, which is why the Bible still has great moral value, without our having to believe any of it’s literally true, or that the main character is still alive.)

So Fry’s point seemed to be that making the most of the language we use – mucking about with top words like “plank”, “Bonobo” and “spoon”, then revising, cutting, rethinking the arrangements – makes for a better existence.

That playing is important. I remember Robert Harris talking about writing Pompeii (on the South Bank Show, I think). He’d done his research, he’d plotted the book out. The actual writing was just a series of “solutions” to get him to the end. But I hate the idea of just joining the dots. The last month of writing The Time Travellers was miserable because I knew where the thing was going, and I was shackled to this predestined end. So I came up with ways of doing things differently, to try and surprise myself (and keep me awake). Even the very last chapter is full of stuff I came up with right at the last minute.

(Though whether that actually keeps it fresher and more interesting, isn’t my decision. We’ll see soon enough…)

Afterwards, there were questions (and yes, the inevitable non-question from someone, going on about who they were and then making some judgment on all that had been said. You have to have one of these at any Q&A. If the organisers ask people specifically not to do this, you get loads of them).

Fry’s answers were longer, more rambling, more expansive – which made me think that he must have prepared his talk. It had been more concise, more structured, more sure. It was, for his efforts (and though I think rambling has value of its own) better.

No questions about Fry writing Droo (I was too cowardly). But a chum sent me this brilliant piece of balanced, unbiased reporting.

Parallel lines

Today, Microsoft Word didn't recognise "microsite". Since I'm hot-desking at work and the defaults aren't my own, it automatically changed it to "crosstie".

This, as well as not being helpful, was not a word I'd ever heard of before. So I looked it up.

Oh, it's sort of from "tie across", and is an American word for sleepers (the things that hold railway tracks in place).

It doesn't, as I'd thought, rhyme with "frosty".

Power over the sea!

Went to the Trafalgar 200 wossname in Trafalgar Square yesterday, which was fun - especially when a bit of scenery caught fire during the big finale. Looked like it might do damage to the newly repointed National Gallery...

The whole thing was a big advert for the Royal Navy, with lots about its core values (courage, care, killing baddies...). But it was free, and the rain held off, and the final column-in-lights was cool. Overall, we learned that Nelson had a big willy, the Royal Navy still has that big willy, and you could have a big willy too, if only you signed up.

In other news, Joe Ford has written some very nice things about Lost Museum - at least, nice about me. (NB the full review contains SPOILERS.)

"I am full of hope for Simon Guerrier’s upcoming first Doctor novel, after listening to this story I expect it will be a real winner. Three things leapt out of me here, his excellent grasp of established characters; the ability to tell a satisfying self-contained story and the inclusion of some unique ideas. Most regular Doctor Who audio would be lucky to get one of those right, here Guerrier achieves a remarkable feat of squeezing it all into fifty-five minutes."

The shortness of the play (they're usually 65 minutes or more) is entirely my fault; the script was the wanted 70 pages, but it's meant to be fast and furious from the start, and I didn't compensate for that. Did the same thing with The Coup...

Oh, and I get a mention in this review of A Day In The Life. I'm simply "boring". Which will come as no surprise to readers of this blog...

Small, far away

Oceans of time ago, I dragged a mate to an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery to see “Full Moon”, Michael Light’s vast and remastered photographs from the Apollo moon missions. Although the accompanying book is well worth picking up, it can’t capture the wow factor of seeing lunar landscapes blown up huuuuuuge.

One of the oddest things about the pictures is the non-effect of the moon’s puny atmosphere. (It does actually have one. “Just the Apollo missions to the Moon increased the atmospheric density by a factor of 10,” as Mark Kidger explains.) Your traditional landscape shows aerial perspective – the blue-green blurring of distant hills in the distance. But the moon’s mountains remain pin-sharp, and since they’re also very much larger than anything down here, the real life moon looks like bad CGI.

At first, you’d think this obvious, cheap special effect would lend itself to the NASA never landed on the moon stuff. But not when you think about it; an “earthly” perspective would give away the scam.

Anyway. Having been dazzled by alien vistas, our ticket also got us in to a showing of portraits by Chuck Close, who I’d never heard of. Yes, I am a philistine.

Close’s portraits are huuuuuuge. They’re based on photographs, with the subject usually staring down at you from above. Reproductions in books and online don’t really do them justice – it’s the sheer bloody scale of them that’s amazing. The close scrutiny of the near and everyday made a great contrast to the moon snaps, and both muck about with the border between art and science. Which is nice.

Got to see Close speak last night at the NPG, as part of their self-portrait thing. He was candid about the mechanics of producing his work, and made some interesting links between his slow, one-cell-at-a-time method (which can surprise him even though the “bigger” picture turns out like he’d planned), and the same incremental steps in writing a novel. As he said, with each portrait based on a photo, it’s the “means” he’s interested in, not the “ends”.

It seemed to me that what's changed in his heads over the years is more interest in process, and an ease with showing his working. Precise airbrushing has been superseded by “wrong” colours, wild, whirling marks and a freedom close-up on the canvas that makes the portrait, only comprehensible from the far side of the room, all the more brilliant.

I also really liked his unpretentious style. A portrait of his grandmother-in-law, all done in his own thumbprints, had been hailed for "the intimacy of his having touched every detail of the face." No, said Close, he’d just been thinking how to make his work forge-proof.

Er… golly. Lots on art, and nothing at all on the new Boards of Canada album what I accidentally bought yesterday. Will have to do something about that sometime.