Fantastic PR, Fox

I don't think I'd ever read Fantastic Mr Fox, though I knew it backwards from an audio version released on tape in the early 1980s. It's another lively, exciting adventure full of simple yet vivid descriptions. Good manners and pluck help our heroes get revenge on the horrid villains.

The hero is Mr Fox, a cravat-wearing fop who calls people “Darling” and who might be related to Basil Brush. (The recent BBC Four documentary Sidekick Stories pointed out the gag of making a fox part of the landed (i.e. hunting) gentry.)

Mr Fox has been thieving his meals from the stores of three local farmers, Messrs Boggis, Bunce and Bean. The farmers take revenge by shooting off Mr Fox's tail then attacking his home with diggers. Mr Fox and his family dig for their lives, but the countryside is covered in the farmers' men, waiting to kill anything that moves. Soon the Foxes are starving. Until Mr Fox has a rather splendid idea...

The short book – 82 pages with a lot of illustrations – is largely a great long list of all the things Mr Fox then provides for his family to eat. That's especially evocative after all the stuff about them starving.

“The table was covered with chickens and ducks and geese and hams and bacon, and everyone was tucking into the lovely food.”

Roald Dahl, Fantastic Mr Fox, p. 75.

There are also carrots for the Rabbits to eat. It might strike us as odd that Fox has invited Rabbits to the feast, and as guests rather than as main course. It's also odd that these wild animals are such fans of roast dinner. But there are a whole lot of things going on in the story which struck me as propaganda.

All the humans are horrible. All the humans we see carry weapons – guns and sticks and, in the case of Mr Bean's maid, Mabel, a rolling pin. When the farmers eat and drink the produce of their farms it is greasy, greedy, smelly and ick. When Mr Fox does the same, it is a lovely feast. The farmers are rude and disgusting. Mr Fox belching is such a good joke he does it again.

(The only good humans are the children in the first chapter who have a rhyme about the farmers being “horrible crooks”. Having dispensed this authoritative verdict, they are not seen again.)

Almost all the other animals love Mr Fox. They don't blame him for the trouble he's got them all in. Mrs Fox never blames him for risking their sons' lives. Badger and Rabbit don't point out that this argument is nothing to do with him.

The one animal who doesn't love Mr Fox is Rat, who is drunk on Mr Bean's cider. Badger remarks,

“All rats have bad manners. I've never met a polite rat.”

Ibid., p. 72.

Which is not what he says in the Wind in the Willows.

The animals on the menu are not given voices. The chickens do not have characters. Mr Fox is also careful about killing them – selectively, quickly, humanely. That's really not what foxes do (as my mum, who keeps chickens, has to lament all too often).

Mr Fox not only endangers his children, he also encourages them to drink cider.

“You must understand this was not the ordinary weak fizzy cider one buys in a store. It was the real stuff, a home-brewed fiery liquor that burned in your throat and boiled in your stomach.

'Ah-h-h-h-h-h-!' gasped the Smallest Fox. 'This is some cider!'”

Ibid., p. 64.

For all Mr Fox is a daring rebel, the depiction of women is a little old skool. Mrs Fox is left behind to cook dinner while her husband and son have adventures. Mrs Badger is likewise too weak to do anything but turn up at the end. Mrs Bean and her maid Mabel stay at home while the farmers are out hunting, their only job to provide supplies.

And there's an odd attempt to square the circle in chapter 14, “Badger Has Doubts”. He's a more sensible, reasonable fellow than the hot-headed Fox, and tries to articulate his disquiet about what they're up to.

“Suddenly Badger said, 'Doesn't this worry you just a tiny bit, Foxy?'

'Worry me?' said Mr Fox. 'What?'

'All this... this stealing.'

Mr Fox stopped digging and stared at Badger as though he had gone completely dotty. 'My dear old furry frump,' he said, 'do you know anyone in the whole world who wouldn't swipe a few chickens if his children were starving to death?'”

Ibid., p. 58.

Fox goes on to argue that, unlike the humans, the animals are not planning to kill their foes, merely to take food they won't even miss. But it's Mr Fox's stealing that has started this whole mess. His actions have endangered his own family and also his friends and his neighbours. There's no suggestion of their anger at him, let alone their considering handing him over to the farmers.

His brilliant wheeze of building a community underground, with shops and schools, is a cause for celebration. But it struck me that the animals are condemned to spend the rest of their lives in a bunker. And surely the farmers won't wait for ever...

A fun and richly told adventure, but I can't help wondering what happened next and feeling we were only told half of the story. I know it's a kids' book but I'd argue that makes worrying about this stuff all the more important.

Space-pirate badger #1

In the run-up to The Pirate Loop being available in all good bookshops, I shall be posting some space-pirate badgers.

First off, here's my rubbish sketch for a possible book cover, from 18 March 2007. The terrible handwriting says, "Savage, eye-patched badger in neckerchief + battered space suit. Focal gold loop through ear." And also, "THE PIRATE LOOP by SIMON".

Excitingly, this was then made a real cover by the cleverness incarnate that is Lee. I shall be posting that sometime soon...

Space-pirate badgers #3 and #4

Last post on this subject, I promise.

Went to Manchester yesterday to sign more copies of Dr Who and the Pirate Loop. It was more exclusive an event than maybe we'd expected, but congratulations to young fans Peter and James for winning the quiz. Me, Jim and Trev did readings of our best bits (Milky-Pink City; the Doctor walks into the bar; the Doctor in the bathroom) and then got to scrawling our names.

John Davies of Short Trips fame made it along, and I also got to meet Mike Amberry and Bernard O'Toole, who'll be in "How the Doctor changed my life" later this year. Both manfully resisted the urge to throttle me for the work I've made them do. Then it was on to beer and Chinese, and a contest for lame meets with celebrities.

My brother-in-law and his mate the Yemayan Ambassador (see page 91) worried we'd share the last train home with Manchester's finest drunks. Sadly, the trip back to Macclesfield was quiet and uneventful.

Amongst the Decemberists, there was much comparison of our various reviews and how can readers pick up or concentrate on the strangest of elements.

Anyway. Hooray, because I've managed to come out pick of the month of all knock-off product featured in this month's DWM, and am a bit dazzled to beat The Target Book, let alone my colleagues.

"The Pirate Loop is one of those rare things, a children's book that adults will adore. It's clever, funny, thoughtful and silly, and loads of other good words. But the one that sums it up best is this: brilliant."

Matt Michael, "The DWM Review", Doctor Who Magazine #391 (6 Feb 2008), p. 60.

SFX likes Jim's one best (though refers to it as "Peacekeeper"), and thought mine worth just 2.5 stars out of five. My own, it says, starts outrageously,

"and gets gradually camper from there ... It lurches between comic setpieces and frequent bursts of violence (including endless shootings and a couple of gratuitous stabbings), while the constant pressing of the temporal reset button quickly becomes wearying (even Martha admits she's "getting a bit bored by it all" at one point). It's also incredibly talky, and everyone knows that, if there's one thing guaranteed to turn the kids off, it's too much yakking."

Paul Kirkley, "SFXrated Books", SFX #166, February 2008, p112.

In fact, my book seems to have caused a bit of a stir, with some people tickled pick and others rather angry. "Omega's Chicken" on the Doctor Who forum thread for the book (you have to register to read it) seems especially cross, calling it "Absolutely terrible ... just childish, dull and banal." But on the whole people who deserve to continue to living (joke!) seem to enjoy it.

I don't think I can really count Millennium's lovely comments, much as they made me beam.

A few people at signings (some of them adults) have also asked about What Archie Did Next. Even the folks at my publishers seem taken with the little scamp - my editor even had cake with Lee Binding's Archie artwork printed on it. And I'm told people have done drawings...

But can you do better? I've set up an open Flickr group, "Archibald the space-pirate badger", in which YOU can submit your own drawings.

Guerueruruererrier

I been mostly working in an office and when not doing that, writing and revising a few outlines. On the whole these outlines look as though they might one day be things that are real and tangible and can be talked about here.

But not yet.

Outlines are tricky because there's so much you need them to do. They've got to show a strong central concept (or, to use the technical term, Wheeze). They've got to show how that Wheeze works in a plot structure (or, Adventure). That Adventure has to include all the mechanics of discovery, revelation and twists (or, How). That How needs to include the way the disparate threads all conclude together (or, Ending), making the jagged and unpredicatable path of the Adventure look, in retrospect, a single straight corridor. And then, you gotta include some kind of disclaimer that this is just one option and you'd be happy to knock more ideas around (or, and in a timid squeak, Yes?).

So, in short, W-A-H-E-Y.

Thing is, you know your poor editor is very busy and so you have to keep it brief. You have to pack as much detail and excitement and off-the-wall-look-at-me-mad-idea-Roger-Rabbitry into as few words as possible. And the effect of this packing a whole universe into a half-sentence is to make you a bit starey-eyed and hyper.

More starey-eyed and hyper.

But it's worth it. The here's-an-idea... was the stuff that got me fired up writing as a kid. A chance comment or joke from my younger brothers and I could suddenly see a whole story. They of course would then be expected to read it, poor sods.

And even more exciting is that bit where an editor agrees to whatever you're proposing. (That getting the gig, and then getting the monies when it's been handed in, those are the good bits of writing. Let's just gloss over the bit that goes in between. Oh, and incidentally the Times has winkled out what I got paid for the Pirate Loop. )

And then there's the particular skippiness because folk like the effort you put in. Like Ionlylurkhere and the splendid LJers who have responded to that thread. (They can scroll through plenty of Badger facts and pictures by clicking the badger tag.)

I don't know what a LoM is but this Proper Who Writer (another technical term) certainly feels validated. Wahey indeed!

Space-pirate badger #2

The monstrously talented Red Scharlach has created an avatar of Archibald the space pirate badger. And I am giddy with excitement.

There's plenty more of this sort of thing at Red's site.

Woo

I have some depressingly clever friends.

Spent yesterday morning fighting badger-faced pirates and the afternoon laying out Benny. Mr Alex also showed me his rather exciting Dalek movie and film of him stinging spikes up his nose (which he has also shown Sylvester McCoy, he said proudly). I have got him talking to Nimbos and Codename Moose. Shall see if we can't Think Up A Project.

Then ambled smokewards for the customary pub. On the way, I spotted Clemmo's new book looking big in a bookshop window. It's the Oxfam halfway between the British Museum and Forbidden Planet (as is Clemmo's writing, arf).

Managed not to see the person I'd gone to the pub to see (oops), but met some old chums and some new. There's even the glimmer of a hint of a vague possibility of some work off one of the latter.

H for themselves

The Dr sometimes accuses me of tumbling through life as if a guest on QI, where points are scored for top facts and dodging cliche. A while back, for my own entertainment, I came up with my own QI questions, complete with the cliches that set off a klaxon and lose you 10 points. The "H" series was on at the time.

Heiroglyphics
Which profession is a baboon the god of?

X Actors
X Politicians

Thoth – as a baboon – was god of writers and scribes in ancient Egypt. The thinking is that baboons chattered and babbled like humans, which was a sign of intelligence. And baboons throw poo at each other and bear their bottoms, which is like a lot of writers. The ancient Egyptians also used baboons as police dogs.

Huxley
Who else died the same day as John F Kennedy?

X Lee Harvey Oswald
X A bodyguard
X Liberal America

Well, lots of people also died on 22 November 1963 – including the writers Aldous Huxley and CS Lewis. Huxley famously experimented with hallucinogenic drugs such as mescaline and LSD, and at his own request was injected with LSD while he was dying.

Holy Days
Why do most of us get Sundays off work?

X It's the sabbath
X The Bible says so

Edward VI's father Henry VIII split with the Roman Catholic Church and formed a (Catholic) Church of England. Two acts under Edward VI sealed the split. The First Act of Uniformity in 1548 introduced an English prayer book, imposed penalties for non-observance and ordered the suppression of images and Latin primers. It was the first time religious practice in this country was proscribed by a secular authority. The Second Act of Uniformity in 1552 required every subject to attend church on Sunday at one of the rechristened services or morning prayer, evening prayer or the Lord's supper. It was the beginning of keeping Sunday's special, and accompanied by an act for the control of alehouses – the first time liquor began to be licensed. So, strictly speaking, keeping Sunday holy is an anti-Catholic measure.

Honorificabilitudinitatibus
What does Honorificabilitudinitatibus mean?

X It doesn't mean anything
X “I'm very clever”

It means “with honour”, and is Shakespeare showing off in Act 5, scene 1 of Love's Labour's Lost:

I marvel thy master hath not eaten thee for a word;
for thou art not so long by the head as
honorificabilitudinitatibus: thou art easier
swallowed than a flap-dragon.

James Joyce then used it in Ulysees. But is that all that it means? In 1910, Sir Edwin Lawrence-Durning pointed out that it's also an anagram “Hi ludi, F. Baconis nati, tuiti orbi”, or “These plays, F. Bacon’s offspring, are preserved for the world” - which Sir Edwin argued showed Shakespeare's plays were written by Francis Bacon.

Homo
Who's a homo?

X You are
X He is

We all are. All modern humans are examples of Homo sapiens sapiens – note the two “sapiens”, which distinguish us from our late cousins, Homo sapiens idaltu, who died out about 160,000 years ago.

The “homo” bit means “human” or “person”, though “human” derives from the Latin “humanus” - an adjective cognate of “homo”. So the homos came first, then the humans. “Homo” looks like it derives from a Proto-Indo-European word which we now call “*dhǵhem” - that is, “earth” or “soil”. So “Homo” means “Earthman”. Think also of Adam, first man in the Bible, whose name seems to come from “Adamah”, meaning “ground”.

The “sapiens” means “wise”, so we must be especially wise if we're “Homo sapiens sapiens”. But other creatures also have repetition in their names. There's pica pica – the magpie. And my favourite, Meles meles meles – the Eurasian badger.

The Subtle Knife, by Philip Pullman

Will Parry runs away from home and then into another world, where he meets Lyra Silvertongue and seeks to help her. But soon they're despatched on a whole new quest, to find a special knife sharp enough to cut through reality...

A long and stressful drive through Storm Dennis on Saturday was much alleviated by the Audible audiobook of The Subtle Knife. As with Northern Lights, which I enthused about last year, this extraordinary version is read by the author, Philip Pullman, but with actors doing the dialogue. The cast includes Julian Glover and Stephen Thorne, but it's not (as my poor, tired brain kept thinking) Camille Coduri as Lyra.

The Lord of Chaos like the fact he already knew some of the plot as it has been in the TV version of His Dark Materials. The only jarring thing is that the audiobook has much less diversity in its casting, so that it took a moment to realise some of the people we hear are characters we already know from TV.

Another change is that in the TV adaptation Will is from Oxford - a condensed version of what happens in the book, where he's says (on page 62) that he's from Winchester and has run away to Oxford. On page 85, he says he goes to St Peter's School. St Peter's in Winchester is a primary school - I know because it's the primary school I went to; I left when Will must have been about two. Will is 12 in The Subtle Knife so he must be lying to the librarian who asks him. But I find myself wondering if that's where Will did go, even if he's since moved to a secondary school, and thus whether the eventful trip to the supermarket with his mum was at the Sainsburys at Badger Farm, the villains of the Consistorial Court of Discipline stalking the lanes of my own childhood.

It's a thrilling story full of arresting images and moral dilemma, and it ends with the shocking death of two principal characters that still packs a punch. The Lord of Chaos was hunched forward in his seat listening keenly for those bits, but admitted to zoning out for the talkier stuff - all witches and philosophy. We've already ploughed on into The Amber Spyglass and just need another long car journey to finish it.

Some photos

Four images for your delight and excitement.

1. Bernice Summerfield toy

A fantastic surprise present from Monster Maker yesterday, a custom-made toy of Bernice Summerfield in the cat-suit she wears when drawn by the splendid Adrian Salmon.

Benny's creator, Paul Cornell, is also in receipt of a more old-skool Benny, as off the cover of the novel Love and War. Apparently, there is also a toy of her in Frontier in Space style shoulder pads.

2. Moo

Nimbos has been raving about the glories of online printer Moo.com for some time, and I've envied his collection of prettily printed, prettily packaged cards and stickers. So, with permission from Red Scharlach for the use of her picture of Archibald the space-pirate badger, I have got some new business cards done. And they are a magnificence of beautiful, tactile coolitude. I want to hug them and squeeze them and call them George.

3. The Guardian

You can now order my Doctor Who story The Guardian of the Solar System, out in July. And this is the magnificent artwork by Simon Holub.

4. Acrostic apostles


And the church down the road has new signage.

Pick of the penguin

Hooray! For the third time ever, I am in the letters page of Dr Who's Magazine.

"ANIMAL CRACKERS
Doctor Who has had pig people, cat people, rhinoceros people, butterfly people, bird people (and, ahem, badger people) but I think we should get some octopus people. Octopuses have three hearts, blue blood and can regenerate their limbs. So they are probably related to Time Lords anyway.
          Simon Guerrier, email."

Galaxy Forum, DWM #393 (2 April 2008), p. 17.

The long fingers of Doctor Who

Here's what I wrote for the FantasyCon programme, on the subject of writing for Doctor Who:

“His long fingers flashed over the keyboard with amazing speed.”

That’s how Terrance Dicks describes David Tennant’s Doctor on page 29 of his 2007 Doctor Who novel Made of Steel. The Doctor’s in an internet cafe, looking for evidence that the Cybermen weren’t all swallowed by the void he created at Canary Wharf. Cor, I thought when I read that sentence. And also, I’m having that.

At the time I was writing The Pirate Loop, my own tenth Doctor novel (all canapés and badger-faced space pirates) and was struggling to find simple ways to differentiate this Doctor from his predecessors. I’ve written novels, short stories and audio plays featuring eight of the 10 Doctors and one of the trickiest things is getting each incarnation right. How do you make sure that the tenth Doctor sounds like the tenth?

Terrance Dicks was obviously the person to steal from. Dicks has written more Doctor Who than anybody else – he invented the Time Lords, script-edited all of the third Doctor’s era on telly and has written more than 80 Doctor Who novels and novelisations. Dicks also believes that the Doctor is always the Doctor; the same man despite outward appearance and mannerisms. In effect, you write the same character, it’s the actors who make him different.

A good example of this is the 2003 Big Finish audio play Jubilee by Robert Shearman. At the beginning of episode two, Colin Baker’s sixth Doctor is trapped in a room with a disarmed Dalek, played by Nicholas Briggs. It’s almost the same scene as the one in Dalek, Shearman’s 2005 script for the TV series, only with Christopher Eccleston in the role. While Eccleston’s Doctor shouts and drools flem, Baker’s performance is quieter, warier, more curious.

Before the new series, when only Real Fans were likely to pick up Doctor Who books, you could even keep the reader guessing, letting them suss out which Doctor you’d chosen by which companions or adventures you mentioned. But there are now people who love new Doctor Who, “fans” who can’t rattle off the names of the actors who played the previous incarnations. Who don’t recite them every night as they brush their teeth.

So Big Finish’s Short Trips anthologies now tell you up front which Doctor features, and there’s a handy guide to the first eight on the inside back-flap of each of our anthologies. But even when you tell the reader which Doctor it is explicitly, you still need to get him right. I once edited a story where I had to ask if the Doctor in it was the fifth or the eighth. It only took a tiny bit of tweaking to get it right, adding in a particular, simple line of description – especially early on in the story.

Terrance Dicks mastered these simple descriptions: the third Doctor’s “shock of white hair”, the fifth Doctor’s “pleasant, open face”; the “skinny geek” tenth Doctor with his long fingers.

It’s not just about pinching the descriptions from Terrance Dicks’ books. There’s also the extremely necessary research of watching lots of Doctor Who on DVD. I rewatched all the existing episodes of the first year of Doctor Who to properly depict William Hartnell’s first Doctor and his companions for my novel The Time Travellers. This vital preparation meant I could steal the first Doctor’s way of starting any statement, “I should say...” and the way he stands tall, gripping the lapels of his frock coat, whenever there’s a problem. Time well spent, I think.

It’s not that you’re parodying each performance. The research often helps you spot something to hook a story on, or at least an angle to show some new facet of the characters. Genre writing of any kind is often a sort of parlour game; you have to reshuffle familiar elements so that the result appears the same but new. How do you make the Doctor just like he is on TV yet also something new?

The first Doctor on screen turns out to be not quite the grouch Fan wisdom sometimes thinks. Yet he’s often single-minded, neglecting his granddaughter and other companions when some mystery or spectacle takes his fancy. He’s also a reluctant hero: fighting monsters and injustice only when he’s made to. Only some 50 episodes into the series, as the Daleks invade Earth, does he, unprompted, dare to stop them. (Though initially he gets involved only because he’s locked out of the TARDIS.)

In practical terms, the production team had realised they needed a more active protagonist, that the Doctor couldn’t keep having adventures by accident. But within the fiction itself, what changes in the Doctor? Why does he become the crusader we have come to know? Or rather, what stops him getting involved before this? That’s the sort of thing with which I padded out my book.

It’s Jon Pertwee’s third Doctor who spends his time being rude and insufferable to his friends. (A fanzine article in the 1990s argued this was his frustration at being stranded on Earth, unable to work his TARDIS.) I pinched that for my first professionally published short story: in The Switching, when the suave Master tries to escape from prison by swapping his mind into the Doctor’s body, the Doctor’s friends don’t just fail to notice, they think it’s an improvement.

The same story wouldn’t work with any other incarnation of the Doctor; or rather it wouldn’t play out in the same way. Likewise The Time Travellers only works with the first Doctor, and at that particular moment in his life before the Daleks invade Earth. The Doctors aren’t just different superficially; their different mannerisms spill out and shape the stories.

So that’s how it’s done, or at least how I do it. I said I’ve written for eight of the 10 Doctors. I’ve not written for the ninth Doctor because he was only around for a year and all the spin-off books and annuals are now on to the tenth. And I’ve not written for the second Doctor because I found him too difficult. His character is all in the performance of actor Patrick Troughton – not what he says but the gravelly-voiced, impish, naughty schoolboy way he says it.

But even “impish” I stole from Terrance Dicks.

“The girl watched him leave [the internet cafe]. ‘Pity,’ she thought. ‘Completely bonkers, of course. But he looked rather interesting for a geek.’

Doctor Who: Made of Steel by Terrance Dicks, page 31.

Three books at once

I have been busy with badger-faced pirates and so not mucking around here. It also doesn't help that my computer is acting up.

Sometimes it doesn't start up properly, and you just get a waiting blue screen. Sometimes it does start up, and then the keyboard doesn't work. Sometimes it starts up, the keyboard works, and then the Internet doesn't do anything. Oh it connects, and it says it is doing something, but then nothing webwise loads up. Lost three and a half hours to that today, though I got some pirates written on a laptop. Arg.

Nimbos suggests it might be something to do with USB ports, since the keyboard and Internet both come in from them. So I have something to investigate the next time it falls over. Joy oh joy oh joy.

"Or could it be," I suggested, daring to imply that I have any idea, "that I'm still running Windows Millennium Edition?"

Nimbos considered carefully before explaining that I live in the Dark Ages. Have not let on that my keyboard comes with rubber keys.

Otherwise things progress. Spent an hour at Deej's taking pictures of his books and rummaging through his magazines. This will greatly help Alex as he zips along in finishing the Inside Story of Benny.

Speaking of which, I had a fun leaving do on Sunday to mark the end of my regime (though I've still two books and two audios to deliver, as well as the ones being pressed and published now). Somehow, completely accidentally, I managed to drink some beer.

Well, not exactly "some". Text message to the Dr from 01.22 says:

"I love you. Sorry. But you are quite good. Phwoar."

Ho hum.

But she is quite good, and today has word that her book is going to be published. More news on that as and when it is appropriate, but we have reason for opening fizz. Just think, both of us will now be tearing out hair out and swearing, rather than just me.

Paperback writer

An exciting surprise delivery this morning: a box-set of "Ten bestselling novels based on the TV series" - including my own badger-faced nonsense. Didn't even know they were doing these.

I have, of course, already rearranged the books into chronological order. Which makes mine the last in the set.

Poor Jim Swallow misses out on this paperback version, but I assume they can add him to a box-set of the nine books out this year.

ETA: The Book People are selling the box-set for £9.99. That's a quantum less than £1 per book. You'd be bogglingly foolish-like not to.

I am beautiful, am I not?

You might want to skip this post - it's all more me, me, me. The new issue of Doctor Who Magazine features a preview of The Judgement of Isskar, with me describing it – with typical erudition – as “charging around space and time a bit.” (Oh, and there's now a Facebook group for Isskar - come buy, come buy.)

Scott Handcock's feature, “How to Survive 2009” includes mention of five forthcoming things of mine – I have been busy – including The Two Irises. Big Finish's website now boasts the blurb and Anthony Dry's superb cover for that, which is out in April.

DWM also boasts a glowing review of How The Doctor Changed My Life – liking Michael Rees' story best, and calling Arnold T Blumberg's one “clever and moving – not always an easy combination”.

“While there's not enough space here to cover all the stories, each one is worthwhile, written out of genuine love for the series and with something to recommend it. With 25 stories and not one dud I can't praise this enough.”

Matt Michael, The DWM Review, DWM #404 (4 February 2009), p. 60.

The booked also earns a hefty 9 out of 10 from Richard McGinlay at sci-fi-online; Richard gives Home Truths a perfectly respectable 8. Hooray!

Oh, and the British Library are so chuffed with my thoughts on Taking Liberties there's now a space-pirate badger gazing from their news page (under blogs).

But it's not just my scribble that is fabulous. The Dr and some other mean chums are finding the first paragraph of this post from Mike the most hilarious thing since the invention of the spoon. The git monkeys.

Cleaning Up icon

Mr Jackson (Mark Gatiss)
from Cleaning Up,
art by Red Scharlach

Delighted by this artwork from the amazing Red Scharlach showing Mark Gatiss as Mr Jackson in my short film Cleaning Up. (Red also made me a badge of it and one of Archibald the space pirate badger for my birthday.)

Cleaning Up plays as part of "I wasn't expecting that!" at the East End Film Festival in London this Wednesday at 8.30 pm.

You can also watch my short film Revealing Diary free and online. And the amazing Guerrier brothers have shot a third short film, The Plotters, which I will tell you more about when it is finished.

Good at finding keys

The clever Red Scharlach - who made my badger pirate icon - has made a whole bunch more Doctor Who icons to steal. I am especially pleased to see, way down at the bottom, three of Iris Wildthyme (nos. 63-65) and my own creations Amy and her wicked sister Zara (nos. 66-68).

First review of Pirate Loop

Stuart Ian Burns seems to be the first person I don't actually know to have read Doctor Who and the Pirate Loop, which he's reviewed for Behind the Sofa. My "bizarre fantasty" suffers from "an over-familiarity of ideas", while "the characters too, with the exception of a well interpreted Doctor and Martha, are all fairly irritating". Ho hum.

He's critical of the characterisation, and says "the author takes great pleasure in reproducing" the badger pirates' West Country accents. Which is odd, because the book specifically says that they don't have accents like that.

"Despite all of that it’s not an unenjoyable read and sometimes quite ingenious," he concludes, which I guess is good. He's pleased with my structuring and foreshadowing, and my Martha is made of win. But hell, I'm gonna quote the last bit of his review, because it seems whatever my failings, so am I:

"But you know what in the end makes this worth reading? A single paragraph of introspection in which our hero ruminates on what would need to be done were he really to lose his companion. It’s perhaps the most powerful bits of writing about the lonely god since the bottom end of The Family of Blood."

Stuart Ian Burns, Yeah, well, you know I once saw Mika live in Denmark...", Behind the Sofa, 21 December 2007.

Deliverance

So the badger-pirates have been delivered. I've heard the SFX mix of The Final Amendment and the pre-title sequence for The Wake, and yesterday unearthed a secret cachet of photos from early Benny recording sessions. Also been going through my logs for sketches and roughs and all sorts of oddments, so the Inside Story will have plenty of previously unseen stuff. And there is proofing of that and Missing Adventures, and something eventful in the works...

But damn knackered. Am away this weekend to the north. Can't remember when I last had two whole consecutive days off. Am planning on reading the not-quite-new Iain Banks. And catching up on sleep.

And then, and then... Well, there's some on-spec stuff I have been meaning to do forever. And How The Doctor Changed My Life to edit, in time for... er, sort of June 2008. Which means I might have time to blog again shortly. Sorry. But you must have know it couldn't last...

The Power of 3 podcast #212 - The Pirate Loop

The Pirate Loop

The Power of 3 podcast is currently scrutinising the adventures of the Tenth Doctor in print, and I spoke to Kenny for the latest episode about my 2007 novel The Pirate Loop, which was the first original Doctor Who novel read by Steevie.

• The Power of 3 podcast #212 - The Pirate Loop

Here's the blurb on the back of the book:

The Doctor's been everywhere and everywhen in the whole of the universe and seems to know all the answers. But ask him what happened to the Starship Brilliant and he hasn't the first idea. Did it fall into a sun or black hole? Was it shot down in the first moments of the galactic war? And what's this about a secret experimental drive?

The Doctor is skittish. But if Martha is so keen to find out he'll land the TARDIS on the Brilliant, a few days before it vanishes. Then they can see for themselves...

Soon the Doctor learns the awful truth. And Martha learns that you need to be careful what you wish for. She certainly wasn't hoping for mayhem, death, and badger-faced space pirates.

Lost and found (alternative take)

To the NFT last night for the annual Missing Believed Wiped – an evening of odd bits of old telly that have found their way back to the archive. I missed the 2008 event due to commitments, but blogged the one before.

As I said then, it's always an odd collection – and the appeal lies in just than incongruity. Things you'd never see together, and things you'd never seek out, make for a tantalising window to the past.

First was a short film on the Bob Monkhouse Collection – as Jonny says, in large part it seemed a collection of Monkhouse's own appearances. The some 50,000 film cans and videos are of limited appeal to the NFT because much of the programmes already exist in some form. Kaleidoscope have stepped in to manage the collection, which is fascinating as an insight into Monkhouse himself. He used the tapes as research for jokes and people he might work with, but also the mentality behind the collection says a lot in itself. The history of the collection – Monkhouse was taken to court for giving a copy of Goldfinger to Terry Wogan – also reveals a lot about archives in themselves.

This was followed by a collection of comedic bits from the early days of satellite station BSB. As Ian Greaves explained, junking of archives was still going on as late as the 1990s. The material shown in itself wasn't particularly brilliant, but showed early material from Keith Allen and Armando Ianucci – the latter probably the best of the lot.

I thought a lot more of His Lordship Entertains than Jonny did – and more readily saw the debt owed it by Fawlty Towers. The jokes came thick and fast, and there were also all kinds of jokes: word-play, slapstick, farce and character stuff. I loved the two old ladies telling filthy stories (a vacuum cleaner stops us hearing the most saucy bits), and was impressed by how many aged actors were involved. I think it was pushing beyond Up Pompeii, but I'm not sure what it was pushing towards.

Till Death Do Us Part was pretty ropey, with – as Jonny says – the best bits all Dandy Nichols as Else, who tellingly took no part in the topical bits. It was a surprisingly cheap show – all set in Alf's living room but for two brief scenes in front of blown-up photos, and with lines only for the regular cast of four. It was an uncomfortable episode too, not because of the words “coon” and “wog” so much as how much of the programme was given over to Alf's ranting. The cool kids might roll their eyes at his prejudice, but there was little in the way of counter-argument, and the last joke depends on Alf being clumsy rather than being wrong. The viewing notes expressed surprise that “some viewers actually agreed with Alf”, but the episode is all about him having his say.

Both these episodes seemed to be about the loss of the old Empire – Ronnie Barker's Lord Rustless having to open up his stately home as a hotel rather than flog it to the National Trust, Alf horrified by Britain losing it's place as a first-rate nation. But there were also lots of odd little details I loved: Rita (Una Stubbs) laquering her handbag, or having to boil a kettle to do the washing up. And Else, who lives in Wapping, has apparently never before been to Downing Street or Buckingham Palace.

(The ever-wise T. also pointed out that Mr Quill himself, Bill Burridge, is one of the non-speaking crowd at Downing Street. Frank Gatliff – Badger, butler to Barker – was obviously Ortron in The Monster of Peladon.)

Jonny didn't sit through part two of the event, which was all music from the 60s and 70s. The only extant episode of Time for Blackburn from 1968 had a very quick-edited performance by The Who of “The Magic Bus”, that made the women sat next to me dizzy. There was an odd interview with Jonathan King at a record industry do, and a plug for a “psychedelic pantomime”. But mostly it seemed a sub-Top of the Pops, with Blackburn barely bumbling along through the links, at one point explaining that he was always up himself.

We next had a selection of clips from Look! Hear!, a regional youth programme from the 1970s. The Dr almost exploded when a young, jumper-wearing “Mike” Wood introduced Black Sabbath, years before he followed in the footsteps of Alexander (mostly with his top off). There was also a glorious live performance by The Selecter, when the kids in the audience took over the stage. Somehow, a camera was ready up in the lights to look down on the action.

There were then two episodes of Top of the Pops. The first, from 1976, reminded us how old the presenters used to be, and how hokey the sets. Pans People managed to be sexist and yet not quite sexy, and we cheered at a bit of E.L.O. But mostly the music was pretty execrable – as Dick Fiddy said in between episodes, that's why we needed punk. I thought the Dr might tear her ears off during a performance by R and J Stone of “We Do It”. But the episode also ended with the Bohemian Rhapsody video. How odd to see something so familiar in context, and see just why it blew all competition from the water.

I'd forgotten how awkward the audiences always were in these things, nervously watching the cameras for their cues. But it also surprised me how multi-racial the music programmes were compared to so much other telly of the time – something I've been researching recently for a work thing.

The second episode was from 1967, in ropey black-and-white that kept coming to pieces. Fluff Freeman introduced “See Emily Play”, Pink Floyd fronted by Syd Barrett (who I thought looked a lot like Benjamin Cook). The picture flickered and snowed, the sound dropping out and then dropping back in. I'd love to see a reconstructed version, but this warped and warping effort took me right back to all those nth generation videos of old Doctor Who that made up a lot of my teenage life.

There was then a bit more warped footage from later in the episode – Ray Davies (introduced as “Dave” by Fluff), and Procul Harem's “Whiter Shade of Pale” with a lead singer dressed for no reason at all as a stereotypical Chinaman. It was sometimes a job to tell what were original video effects and what was the tape going weird, and Fluff seemed to commentate from another glacial age. How strange for a programme – and a time – to be so cool and so square all at once.

After, there was just time for a beer and to say hello to the many, many like-minded chums, but we ducked out of festivities in favour of just getting home while there were still some trains.