Goodbye, 2008.

New Year's resolutions tomorrow, but, for now, here are a few things I enjoyed (or not) in 2008.

Books I Liked

Dad Rules - Andrew Clover
The Believers - Zoe Heller
Starter for Ten - David Nicholls
Karlology - Karl Pilkington
Collected Stories - Richard Yates
The Line of Beauty - Alan Hollinghurst
Bringing Nothing to the Party - Paul Carr
A Dangerous Liaison - Carole Seymore-Jones
On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People - Toby Young

Books I Didn't Like As Much As I Thought I Was Going To

That Old Ace in the Hole - Annie Proulx
The Understudy - David Nicholls
The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan

Books I Wasn't Expecting To Like, But Did

Northern Lights
The Subtle Knife
The Amber Spyglass

Films I Liked

Lars and the Real Girl
Knocked Up
Stranger Than Fiction
Lovely & Amazing
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Casino Royale

Film I Was Expecting to Like, But Didn't

Sex and the City

Most-listened to CDs (According to iTunes)

Amy Winehouse - Frank
Bitter:Sweet - The Mating Game
Noisettes - What's the Time Mr Wolf?
Adele - 19
Kings of Convenience - Quiet Is the New Loud
Cake - Comfort Eagle

Favourite/Most Successful Recipes

Rachel Allen's Lemon Tart
Gordon Ramsay's 'Perfect' Scrambled Eggs
James Martin's Banoffee Shortbread
Ina Garten's Cupcakes
And
(as always)
Raspberry & Blueberry Lime Drizzle Cake

A Random Assortment of Everything Else I Enjoyed

The best birthday I've had in years
Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn
Sarah Palin
The third series of Ugly Betty
My Kitchenaid mixer
Last.fm
Walking across the fields with the puppy most days
30 Rock
Krispy Kreme doughnuts
The endless hours of conversations with Alice

Being You - Mary E. Holmes

A nice article in the Mail today about a book I worked on earlier in the year.

Unfortunately, though, Austin & Macauley seem to have under-estimated the demand there would be for this feel-good book: Amazon, Waterstones and The Book Depository sold all of their copies weeks ago.

Kill the Wabbit! (...and the mouse)

I haven't seen this in maybe 15 years or more, and thought I never would again, but it was, of course, on YouTube.

To my mind, it is second only to this:



What discerning (and violent) taste I had as a seven year old.

I can smell...

I've had long enough to figure out my stance on Lily Allen's music, and yet still don't know what I think. But I love a good PR stunt as much as the next person. And nearly as much as I love a good cover.

Mark Ronson 'accidentally' leaked Lily's cover of Britney Spears' track 'Womanizer' on his East Village Radio show on Friday.

Her record company, Parlophone, are said to be furious that 'it is taking attention away from her new album, It's Not Me, It's You, which hits the shops on 9 February.'

So furious, in fact, that they have put it on the front of their website before the video for her not as good latest single.

'I am afraid your letter is most unsuitable for me at the present time...

...as I have just spent the entire weekend writing the novel that you have summarily rejected.'

I didn't get shortlisted for the Asham Award this year. I'm disappointed, but not surprised. I have since been reading Richard Yates' collected stories and now realise that what I wrote was merely a sorry excuse for an imposter of a short story. I'm a little annoyed with myself only because I should have know that my first person prostitute-with-a-heart-but-also-a-borderline-personality-disorder narrative wouldn't be the sort of thing they were looking for, as last year's winner was 1500 words about a girl climbing into a bath of cement.

Titles of shortlisted entries include:

Anubis Ate My Inner Child;
The Belle of Biloxi;
Chameleon Soup;
Colour Me Julie Christie;
and
JK who?

It's been a good exercise, though, in not only finishing something off, but also putting it up for critiquing too - neither of which I had done before September. And there's plenty of time to work on my quirkiness before the next one comes around in 2010.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I've been working my, already quite small, behind off lately because I've taken on far too much, but my brother is coming to stay this weekend to swap presents  - he is going to his girlfriend's parents' for Christmas this year - and I knew that if there were no mince pies on the premises he would turn around and go home again. So I got up early and, eschewing all else, made some. That's just the kind of sister I am.

I cheated massively, of course. I used pre-made bought puff and Filo pastry and a jar of mincemeat. And I used (oh, the shame of it) a Jamie Oliver recipe.

I haven't made them before, though, and always like to try out new recipes when there isn't any pressure. I thought I'd crapped it up for a minute when the Filo stuck to the muffin tin and started tearing but I patched it back together with some melted butter, and they seem to have turned out quite well. I'm not a big mince pie fan myself, but these are delicious.

If you fancy making some, the recipe is here.

There's no place like home

In this month's village newsletter there is a copy of a letter sent to Cherwell District Council by the Parish Council, urging them to reconsider their proposal to build 200 new homes locally. They say that the village is unsuitable for development because of:

an already over-subscribed primary school

an already congested and historically valuable village centre with narrow unalterable bottlenecks

the presence of a major dairy farm with consequent areas ineligible for development

a relatively isolated position with poor road connections

an unreliable electricity supply

no mains gas

poor television and mobile phone reception

high radon emissions

low water pressure

All of which makes me wonder why we continue to live here, never mind how they are going to convince 200 new families to want to too. But then, there is the view.

In Hel's Kitchen

This afternoon I was having a little lay down on the sofa (it is Sunday, and I'd had a busy morning - I did at least a whole hour of work before abandoning it to bake a lemon drizzle cake), when I was woken by Gordon Ramsay saying 'Come on, Helen' in an exasperated tone. It freaked me right out. Ironically, I had to rewind the advert selling the box that lets you rewind live TV to check that I wasn't imagining it. I wasn't, by the way; he really does say it. Thank God, though - otherwise I would have had to explain to a therapist that not only had my subconscious adopted the voice of Gordon Ramsay, but, far worse than that, it was urging me to get off my arse.

The Sonnets - Warwick Collins

I worked on this book back in the last week of July. It was my first assignment for The Friday Project and I was full of trepidation. I already knew that Heather - the publishing editor - was lovely, but I was going to be working directly with the author*, was unfamiliar with the House style guide, and if I didn't like this book, there was a chance I wasn't much going to like what came my way in the future, either. Lucky, then, really, that they started me off with a bit of a corker.

The Sonnets is set in the 1590s, and follows a young William Shakespeare as he is forced back on the patronage of the enigmatic Earl of Southampton, after the London theatres are shut to halt the spread of the plague. I'm not sure what I can write now without giving the rest away, but suffice it to say it's got everything good historical novels should have; history (naturally), sex, poetry, horses and intrigue, as well as an intelligent and poignant narrative. Just in case I haven't said the word 'novel' enough, I should point out that the story behind The Sonnets, although aided by known facts, is entirely imagined by the author. However it is undoubtedly lent an authenticity by the 32 original sonnets that are weaved in to the text.

I am reminded of the book by it's recent publication, and the arrival of my own copy. It is my understanding that there has been some talk among bloggers about the image on the front, but I think the cover is as handsome as I'm certain the woman pictured is from the neck up.

The Sonnets is available now in limited edition (1,000 signed and numbered copies) hardback.

* (My worries about working directly with an author proved to be unfounded. Warwick was meticulous, and so quick to reply to my queries that the proofs were complete in little more than a week. He also agreed with nearly all of my suggested changes - which, on its own, just about guarantees an author a place in my good books.)

Just call me Julie...

Before I upload my next post, let me just say this:

It has barely been four days since I accused that one off Dinnerladies of being a self-promoting sell out, and yet here I am, about to do the exact same thing. Of course I can see the irony - I'm just not going to let it stop me.

In other - obviously completely unrelated(!) - news, I am now an 'associate' for Amazon. This does not mean that I have sold out, or that I endorse Amazon (except I have and I do) - I'm just in it for the little widget that lets me post my reading list ----->

Oh, and the free goods.

Word of the Day

'Synonymitis' - as seen here.

Is there anything Julie Walters won't advertise?

In the space of one commercial break her face or voice (and sometimes her face and voice) appeared in no less than four different adverts; including one for WHSmith where she not only promotes her own book, but also manages to crowbar in a mention of her role in Mamma Mia.

I don't care if a well-known face wants to advertise fifty companies - anyone, no matter how much integrity they have, would find it hard to turn down that kind of money - which means it's only when Julie Walters does it that I find it annoying. I'm not her biggest fan but, putting that aside for a moment, I think it's because she has skewed the effect of her voiceovers by being so overly aggressive in those government messages about testing your smoke alarm.

Last night, when an advert opened on a Christmassy (roaring fire, decorated tree) living room scene and she started to speak, I fully expected to be told that my family were all going to die if I forget to turn the fairy lights off.

Not, that Tesco are selling mince pies for half price!

Save me, Mr Sandman.

I can't sleep - staying awake all night on Tuesday has caught up with me - and I'm watching the late night repeat of Loose Women. Don't judge me; it's this or Bid-up TV.

Naturally, known as the show is for its dedication to current affairs, the panelists have been discussing the election. Well, saying how attractive Barack Obama is anyway. I'm not sure how they did it (more proof, if it be needed, of their considerable skills as broadcasters) but they segued seamlessly between talking about one of the most important moments in world politics, to how their partners leave the toilet seat up.

Larry Lamb is on now, regaling them with an anecdote about brussel sprouts.
Unless I'm hallucinating.

Election Night

Watching Obama's speech this lunchtime, it doesn't have quite the power that it had at about 6am this morning. Maybe I'm not as overwrought and overtired as I was then. I admit that, at the time, I did shed a tear - about 125,000 Americans in Grant Park did too, though, so it's ok.

For the first five minutes it looked, rather worryingly, like McCain could still pull it off, and then for the next five hours it didn't. His concession speech was impressive. Well written, it was so dignified and graceful that for a split second I did think, 'Holy crap, maybe they've made a mistake; he might have been able to handle being President after all'. And then I remembered who would have been put in charge of the Free World should he not have coped - someone who thinks that because 'you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska' [She was in New York at the time] they have the edge on International relations.

I wanted Obama to win. And not just because the prospect of the Republicans getting in was so terrifying. Throughout the entire Democrat campaign his responses have been thoughtful and measured, and he hasn't resorted to employing actors to trash-talk his opponent.

The highlights:

>CNN's hologram reporter
>Oprah getting excited and jabbing her friends when she recognised herself on the big screen
>ITV's shambolic coverage
>The episode of Big Bang Theory I watched online while I was waiting for it to get interesting the polls to close.
>The revelation that Malia and Sasha Obama will be taking a new puppy with them to the White House.

I'm extraordinarily tired now, but having seen the caucuses and debates, there was no way I was going to miss the big finish. However trite it might sound to say, it really did feel like we were watching history being made.

Bitch, you look fierce!

People who like dogs can be neatly divided into two categories: those who would and those who wouldn't put clothes on their pet. I've always been firmly in the latter camp, but then last week we got back from a walk and our dog was shaking so pitifully that I knew something had to be done. However, I'm going to continue to tell myself that I am not one of them, despite massive evidence to the contrary (below). It turns out there is an alarming range of doggy apparel and it took me some deliberation. She's not exactly a little frou frou lap dog - she picks fights with scraggy Alsatians twice her size - and so I had to find something practical but a little bit stylish - after all I didn't want her to look silly in front of that cocker spaniel she fancies from up the road (who usually sports a rather fetching stripy coat himself).

In the end I settled on this:

She might try looking a bit more grateful, though, as it could have been a lot worse -

'A woman must have money and a room of one's own if she is to write fiction.'

I'm talking myself into renting an office. The problem is I can't really afford one and as I have a perfectly adequate kitchen table to write at, I don't really need one. I'm never more aware of how much I want one, though, than I am on a Saturday morning; when the Guardian publish their 'Writers' rooms' section. Just look at this week's!

With the £600 Herman Miller chair, the Bang & Olufsen stereo, and all that white, it's my idea of workspace heaven. It belongs to Francesca Simon, author of the Horrid Henry books. I've just googled her and there are sixteen (!) in the series. But I imagine it would be easy to be so prolific if it meant you got to spend all day in an office that looked like that.

The fact is that, wherever that place might be, I do need somewhere to work and write that is quiet, uncluttered, and uninhabited by other people who might ask me to unload the dishwasher at a moment's notice. There is some office space down in the village. They aren't the most beautiful units in the world, and I've had to put my name on the waiting list but I reckon I can justify the cost of renting one if by doing so I manage to get a lot more work done.

Sometimes...

...I have a good idea and I think, afterwards, that I should put it in my book as a musing of my protagonist. Some I do, and others I keep for myself. I don't know how I decide in to which category they fit. 

'You know, you could be pretty if you didn't scowl so much'

The network wasn't big enough for the both of them. I know how these things work - Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip had to die so that 30 Rock could live. Admittedly I hadn't actually seen a single episode of the latter - I didn't need to to know that I wouldn't like it as much - but then I saw Tina Fey's Palin skits on SNL and thought that if Aaron Sorkin can let it go, then so can I. And, you know what, I do like it. Really like it, in fact. So much so that I stopped watching half way through the first episode until I had the whole box set. It arrived this morning. See you in 21 days. Or ten-and-a-half hours.

Tulips from Amsterdam

Because a project I was due to work on has been delayed, I now have this afternoon free. I should, perhaps, be using this time to catch up on paperwork or, heaven forbid, maybe even write, but as the weather is nice I am going to plant up the tulip bulbs (that I suspect were rather cheekily sneaked through customs) instead.

The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole - Sue Townsend

As I may have mentioned, there are builders working on my parents' house. They are skimming the spare room at the moment, and so a whole library's worth of books are now stacked precariously up and down the landing. I never thought I'd see the day when my mother's house looked so chaotic and bohemian.

Anyway... I was wondering what I was going to read next as part of my read-one-book-a-week-that-isn't- for-work regime and happened to notice this on top of one of the piles. I could have had my pick of John Steinbeck, Wilkie Collins or Henry James, but no. It was the 1984 edition of The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole that jumped out at me.

I read it in the '90s, when I was barely a teenager myself and I'm pretty sure it was the first 'grown up' book I ever read - that is to say it was the first one I picked up of my own volition that didn't have a picture of a pony on the front. I remember being vaguely scandalised whenever there was a mention of nipples or sperm (that sheltered upbringing in the Cotswolds obviously worked) and therefore torn between reading it shamefully under the covers at night with a torch and publicly flaunting the fact that I had been deemed mature enough to read it, by doing so in a place where people would be able to see.

I suppose it's ironic, really, that I picked this book as a bit of light relief after The Believers, thinking it to be its complete antithesis. It is sold as the adolescent ramblings of Adrian:a slightly pretentious, precocious and sex-obsessed 15-year-old, but really it's all just a smoke screen, and he is simply the conduit through which Sue Townsend can impart her not only witty but clever observations about politics, belief, and the dysfunctional family. The two books are, actually, startlingly similar.

A review on Amazon says that the points 'Adrian' makes are just as relevant today as they have ever been, but I don't agree with that entirely. Yes, some of the themes are timeless and universal, but I reckon if a teenager read it today, they would struggle to get a handle on it. Perhaps it's the constant references to (then) current events - the boys I babysit for didn't know who Princess Diana was, let alone the significance of her giving birth to a boy in 1982 - but I doubt it could ever mean that much to anyone born after about 1989. If girls, in 2008, really are giving blow jobs at 12, then why on earth would they want to read about the sexual frustrations of a spotty 15-year-old?!

Having re-read it, ten years older and if not exactly wiser then at least a little less naive, I'm certain that a lot of the innuendo and euphemisms would have gone right over my thirteen year-old head. And I couldn't be more pleased that they did.

Day 3

This week the house has had more tradesmen in than the yellow pages. The list includes, but is not limited to:

4 builders

3 tree surgeons 

3 glaziers 

2 Sky technicians

2 decorators

2 window cleaners

A man with a pressure washer who cleaned the patio

A plasterer

An accountant

and

An IT consultant.

The constant interruptions, disconcertingly loud crashes and having to break every hour to provide tea, hardly make it the ideal conditions for concentrated effort. However, I can't deny that there is a sort of things-getting-done, progress-being-made atmosphere in the house that is usually absent. 

*UPDATE* - I've since been reliably informed that there were six individual Sky technicians, over four visits.

Karlology - Karl Pilkington

"Where have you put all the dinosaurs?" I asked the old security man. "Dinosaurs? You won't find any dinosaurs in here, you want the Natural History Museum."
Turns out I was at the V & A. I don't know why they have all the museums so close together...If another meteorite hits Earth and wipes out civilization, then in billions of years time, when humans grow back again, some archaeologist is gonna be well confused when they start digging round here and find human bones, dinosaur bones, bits of old Chinese art, polar bears, fish and computers all within a 1-mile radius.

I was given this for my birthday yesterday and I finished it this morning. It's not short at around 220 pages, but a lot of space is taken up by a large typeface, quotes, photographs, and Karl's magnificent illustrations. 

Karlology, the follow-up to Happyslapped by a Jellyfish, is a collection of essays about Karl's trips to various museums and exhibitions in a bid to garner more knowledge and perhaps some wisdom. 

There is, still, some debate as to whether or not 'Karl Pilkington' is a real person, or if he is a comedy construct - an allegation that Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have both strongly denied. I'm still on the fence, if I'm honest. I'm sure there are certain aspects of his character and personality that he plays up, but for the most part believe that it would be impossible to script such elaborate digressions. 

It's his self-awareness (along with the knowledge that he makes massive amounts of money) that stops any sneaking feelings that someone with below average intelligence is being exploited for laughs and japes. I used to get this niggling feeling of sadness in the pit of my stomach whenever they would tickle him with a fact and wait for him to say something improbable. Now I'm just sad that he only puts out one book a year.

Firstly...

First blog entries are always tricky, so let me just say this - 

It occurs to me that writing a novel is much like having a baby. 

You're just going about your life and then, quite without meaning to, you've conceived an idea (see - even the terminology alludes to pregnancy) but you haven't decided what you want to do and it's too early to tell anyone for fear of jinxing it, so you revel for a while in the secrecy of it all. After a few weeks you start to feel emboldened, tentatively tell a few friends, and before you know it people you've never met come up to you at parties and talk to you about little else. They laud you for having the courage to go through with it, and then tell you about a friend of theirs that did, and who has never been quite the same since. Months later and you suddenly find yourself past the point of no return. You're struck by the realisation that, one way or another, this thing is coming out of you and that when it does, you'll have to show it to people and hope that they don't think it's ugly. To top it all, your friends who haven't been through it don't understand your new lifestyle, say you've changed and then declare you mad when, come the following year, you announce that you're going to do it all again.

I'm past the ideas stage, but thinking about my lack of any real progress too much still makes me feel guilty and vaguely nauseous. For ages - on the advice of an author friend of mine - I didn't tell anyone. The potential embarrassment of having to admit later that I couldn't find a publisher or had simply given up, prevented me from doing so. I've been writing (or at least trying to) for eighteen months now, and rather than continue to tell no-one, I've decided to tell potentially everyone. As I'm intensely afraid of failure this is, for me personally, quite a stupid brave thing to do. My hope is that it will force me to be more disciplined - that when I'm sitting at my desk, staring at a flashing cursor on a blank word document and really struggling to produce anything new, it [the fear] will give me the impetus I need to carry on. If only to save face.

However, this blog won't be all about the writing process, rather it will be about my life at the time of writing. I'm not really one for full and frank disclosure - that should probably be known now. Inevitably, my posts will reveal far more about me than I would like, but be assured that I won't be conveying every little detail of every day - very boring patterns would soon emerge if I did. I work in publishing so it will likely have a bit of a literary bent from time to time, but mainly I just wanted somewhere I could freely put down some of my thoughts and observations without being censored, and, hopefully, without censoring myself.