October 2008 Archives

I'm off to Cornwall tomorrow for a nicely-timed bit of house-sitting/writer's retreat type thing.  Ever notice how writer's are the only profession that take "retreats"?  You never hear of an accountancy clerk flying out to the Hebrides to do a little bit of private, reflective actuary, do you?

It's not as if I'll be in the hinterlands and will still be electronically active (especially, like most of us, for certain election results), but before I go, I wanted to post some reminders of current things.  First, two events I'm doing in November:  17 November, the UCS Beyond Words Festival and 29 November, the Big Science Read, at Bury Central Library, near Manchester.  See the Events tab for more details.

Next, there's still time (if you're in the UK and between the ages of 5 and 16) to enter the competition they've asked me to set and judge in the Guardian. 

And finally, the paperback of The Knife of Never Letting Go is at last in stores.  I know, because I've seen it, despite what Amazon keeps claiming about it not being out until next week.

Otherwise, happy Halloween and Armistice.  I might write before then, but only if I feel like it.

I've set a competition in today's Guardian for young writers in the UK between the ages of 5 and 16, with some very good prizes.  It's in the Comics page in the Family section, check it out.

I've provided the opening and closing lines, so the young people who enter have to connect the dots in the most interesting and thrilling way.  I get to judge the winner personally, so this ought to be fun.  Good luck!

(Again, though, note the age requirement and that it's for UK residents only (sorry, America and Australia, but I'm working on it...))

By whatever strange alchemy that runs Wikipedia, I now have my very own entry.  It's not especially good yet, as they (whoever "they" ended up being) have pretty much just summarised my biog page from this website. 

I'm sure they meant well, but I have to say, my biog page is sort of friendly and fun; the resulting translation to Wiki loses something and seems oddly accusatory, as if sometime, somewhere, I'd tried to deny these facts.  What are you gonna do?  I should probably start lying in interviews and official sources, see what sticks.  Have I mentioned I'm half Mauritanian?

I'm also on a bit of a roll at the minute with good theatre.  The Walworth Farce at the National is brilliant:  funny and ripely written and very menacing.  Go see it.

Because it won the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, my lovely publishers Walker Books have brought the paperback of The Knife of Never Letting Go up to this very week!  Yes, yes, Amazon says 3 Nov still, but it was shipped from the Walker warehouses today (if everything went according to plan), so it should be in bookstores - and at Amazon - by about Wednesday.

And here's a picture of the cover they've done, which looks even better on the real thing because the Noise is covering it in gloss.  Cool stuff.

I've also made a rare update to the Events tab, so take a look.  I'm appearing at the UCS Beyond Words Festival on 17 November, and as part of the Big Science Read in Manchester (actually, Bury for my particular event) on 29 November, which is moderated by Katherine Beacon, one of my favourite people in the world.  How nice if I see you there (and more to come...)

So, as a birthday present, we paid the approx. 700 pound cover price and went to see Billy Elliot the Musical.  And let me tell, expensive tickets or not, I loved it.  In fact, let me exclamation point that:  I loved it!

First of all, it has a real book, rather than just the usual stitched-together nonsense (see Carousel).  Second, it's funny and smart and sentimental and paced exactly right.  And third - and best of all - it has the foulest mouth of any musical I've ever seen.  There's something utterly splendid of a chorus of cherub-faced wee girls singing, "O my darling, o my darling, o my darling Heseltine/You're a tosser, you're a wanker, and you're just a Tory swine".  And that's only what's publishable on a family blog.

Really, I have no idea how this is going to go down in New York (where it opens this month); the accent alone will be an obstacle (it's called Geordie, for all you US readers), the politics and references will be baffling, and I get the feeling that "family shows" have about 600 fewer uses of the f-word.  Who cares?  It's how musicals should be and rarely are:  good for your brain, actually about something, and shamelessly tugging at your heartstrings while cussing you out.  Brilliant.

On a tangential note further north, there's quite a nice review of Knife of Never Letting Go in the Scotsman today (and another in the Australian Courier-Mail, so not really north at all, that one) 

I looked at last year's diary entry for tomorrow (17 October), and it's all about Anne Enright winning the Booker.  I completely neglected to mention that it was my birthday.  Which is typical, I always forget I'm having a birthday and then wonder why no one remembers it for me.

Nevertheless, tomorrow is my birthday.  I don't believe in even the tiniest portion of astrology, but if you've got to be a sign, everyone knows Libra is the best.

In other news, the paperback of The Knife of Never Letting Go will be in bookstores by the middle of next week.  It looks great.  I'll have a picture up soon...

Yes, I know, I promised the iPod of Two, but how about an iPod EP of songs sung in a foreign language?  And not just French either...

Quand Vous Mourez Do Nos Amours by Rufus Wainwright (yes, used once before, but his best performance, with the McGarrigle Sisters on backing vocals)

Mein Teil by Rammstein (even the name Rammstein makes me laugh; of course it's the PSB remix, unlistenable otherwise; the title is a dirty pun and the song is about cannibalism: German heavy metal, what can you do?)

While the Earth Sleeps by Deep Forest  (good God, remember Deep Forest?  Peter Gabriel singing in extremely catchy Macedonian)

Der Kommissar by Falco  (Dreh dich nicht um (oh wha oh), schau, schau/der Kommissar geht um (oh oh oh!); prompting the classic Simpsons line:  "Thank you, Taco, for that lovely tribute to Falco")

Le Yeux de Ton Pere by Les Negresses Vertes  (The Eyes of Your Father, or as the lyrics go, "Your mother has made an omelette with the eyes of your father"; hell if I know, but it's awfully jaunty)

And a special mention to Fotzepolitic by Cocteau Twins, which isn't any language whatsoever.  See also anything by Sigur Ros.  Auf wiedersehen! 

I consider myself a pretty well-read individual, but I'll admit it:  I've never heard of Jean-Marie Gustave le Clezio.  But congrats to him (and there goes the pen name I was planning on using.)

I have of course heard of last year's winner, though.  In fact, I met Doris Lessing once at the HarperCollins Summer Party.  She was lovely and tiny and a wee bit hobbit-like and I was so afraid of saying something stupid, I didn't say anything at all.

Later (and this is true) I was talking to some other people I'd just met and they were asking me how I was enjoying my very first publishing party (which it was).  I, nervous and braying (as I often get when I'm nervous), said, "Well, I met Doris Lessing."  They said, "How as that?".  I then decided, in a moment of idiotic madness, to make the following, ahem, joke:  "She hit on me.  It was awkward for everyone."

After the unsurprising stony silence this received, I then brayed, "So, what do you do?"  And they answered, with impeccable timing, "We're Doris Lessing's agents."

A tumbleweed then rolled through the middle of us.  I cringe even thinking of it.

Yesterday I ran in the soon-to-be-infamous Run-to-the-Beat half-marathon, and good God, what a shambles.  Two things happened that couldn't be foreseen:  1) a complete transport meltdown (I was trapped on the Jubilee Line between Bermondsey and Canada Water for 40 minutes), and 2) the weather. It rained.  And rained.  And rained and rained and rained and rained...

But acts of God (and TfL) weren't to blame for 1) mile markers that were apparently wild guesses (I did a split of 8:09 followed by an exact same pace split of 9:12, yes, okay), 2) less music on the course than even a marathon, 3) bag checks of almost Biblical disarray, and 4) a course that might actually have been too long.  Take a look at the Runner's World feedback.  Improvement needed.

Despite all of that, I was aiming for 2 hours and ran 1 hour, 54 minutes and 59 seconds (and boy did I bloody earn that last minute).  And that was in pouring, constant rain, so I'm extremely happy about that.  Now, you've seen my dedication, why not sponsor me for a whole marathon?  I keep asking and replying nicely to emails, so why not give to a good cause, eh?  Now, back to bed to rest my aching back.

Right, so you can happily wipe away a tear to "You'll Never Walk Alone", but have you ever actually seen Carousel?  I mean, all musical theatre is bonkers (being, as it is, opera re-written as sitcom), but I saw the touring edition of Carousel last night with Lesley Garrett, and it is so much more deeply peculiar than I'd ever dreamed.

Apart from the unambiguous message that a little domestic violence really only means he loves you, the hero is so deeply unsympathetic I was rooting for his death.  Which, by the way, is a suicide when he's about to be (rightfully) arrested for attempted murder. 

And then there's a 20-minute ballet, followed by a truncated closing number where the message seems to be, conform and everyone will like you.  Well, yes, that's actually the point of conformity. 

But we did have Lesley Garrett, and boy, isn't she determined that everyone's going to have a good time?  You, yes, you there, in the third row, are you smiling?  Are you smiling?  She's kind of like Dolly Parton, though, even cynics find it hard to say a bad word about her.  Just hearing her try an American accent was enough to make my evening.