Underarm soldering and flowers for Stephenson

It must be Friday – I’ve had a chunk of skin removed. This morning’s festivities started down at the local medical centre, where a nice doctor took the medical equivalent of a soldering iron to a tag of skin I’ve been nurturing for a while. The flesh sparks and sizzles as the thin metal blade passes through it, like a tiny special effect. No smoke and sweet stench of burning human flesh though. Which is always a plus for the ladies.

Then it was back to the house and EDITING! Yes, I got the final notes back from the delectable Sarah (editing guru and the token sane person at HarperCollins) yesterday evening. “How many changes did you have to make, Stuart?” I hear you cry. Well, put it this way, I’ve finished them already. All of them. Done and indeed dusted. Now all I have to do is go hunting for typos – ably assisted by some notes from Mr James – and I’m done. OK, so I know that the typos will get caught by the proof reader, but I’d rather have the book in as good a nick as I can get it before sending it in. Professional pride and all that.

Hahahahah! The end is in sight*.

The only interruption to my day’s labour, other than the visit to Dr Barbecue’s solder shop, has been a fleet of flower deliver companies, knocking on my door and wanting to know if I’m Mrs Stephenson. I kid you not – these people are waiting for me to open the front door, looking at me in my fetching beard-and-dressing-gown writing combo, and asking, “Mrs Stephenson?” Twits. HELLO? BEARD…! Mind you, maybe Mrs Stephenson has a beard too, so I suppose I shouldn’t judge.

Given the number of floral delivery twits looking for her today, I have to assume it’s either a BIG birthday, or she’s dead. And if it’s the latter, she’s even less likely to be a bearded bloke in his dressing gown. In my humble opinion.

Right, now that She Who Must Be Consoled After A Poopy Day At Work is back, I must bid you all adieu and go spend the evening in more culinary pursuits. Maybe some roast pork. I’m sure I’ve still got that skin tag around here somewhere…

*It’s these cheap pyjamas.

Life imitates… well, not so much ART as stuff.

Lasse (who translated Cold Granite, thus inflicting it on an unsuspecting Norway) and Ingeborg (Norwegian publisher extraordinaire with Tiden) emailed me a photo yesterday. Apparently there’s a tradition in the land of Fjords and Aquavit where high school graduates paint up their cars and go partying. Which probably involves more Aquavit and scary hangovers. If you’ve read the book, you’ll know why this photo brought a smile to my face:
OK, so according to Lasse this Volkswagen was given its livery before Cold Granite came out over there, but we can pretend it’s a bizarre, homage conducted in non-linear time. Of course we can: if time is cyclical, then all moments will eventually overlap anyway. No, shut up, I’m not listening anymore... la, la, la...

Incidentally, if you were a sexy Norwegian lady, how turned on would you be by a scabby VW camper van, painted up in blood splatters? I’m guessing very ;}#

If life gives you onions, make onionade*

Well, today’s word count total is somewhere between ‘bugger all’ and ‘nonexistent’. Why? That’s a good question. Mostly it has to do with getting the copy ready for the back of the new book, you know the kind of thing. Like a movie trailer, only without the pictures, booming soundtrack and customary explosions.

We were talking about the whole synopsis thing down at Harrogate over the weekend. Some people use their synopsis the way God and the Oxford dictionary intended: as a summary of their book. Others use it to sell the damn book. Who cares if it summarises every element of the plot? For me the synopsis is there for one reason only: to get someone to read the book. Both naughty Simon K and I ended up with our synopses on the book jackets (give or take), which I think is how it should be. The trouble starts when you forget to send your publisher the synopsis at all. Oops. The trouble continues when you can’t find the damn thing on your computer, even though you KNOW you’ve written one. At least you think you know you’ve written one...

Could I find it on the computer? Could I cheese and biscuits. Ended up typing the damn thing back in again from a printout lurking down the back of the sofa. I have to confess that it’s incredibly decent of HarperCollins to trust me to go off and write a book without so much as a cat-eared plan. Book two has been produced on nothing more than a slurry response after a few too many glasses of the cold and fizzy: “Whaz... whaz it about? Hmmm...” Lurch, stagger, belch. “Oh yea, yea: Izz about revenge an’ drugs an’ a dismembered Labri... Labrador.” Sniff. “Any more champagne?” They must be mad.

Still, the thing’s nearly finished with its line edit, so we should be done and dusted any day now. Then it’ll be three cheers for the gods of underpants and back to TSA.

Soon my pretty, soon...

* which is a bit like lemonade, only you’re a lot less likely to get a snog after drinking it.

Plop, plop, fizz, fizz...

Which sounds like some unfortunate bowel disorder*, but has nothing to do with the consumption of far too much Theakston’s Old Peculiar.

As I posted (or rather got Fiona to post) a whole heap of stuff writted in advance, I suppose I should do some sort of actual coverage of the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, if only to set out the truth in these matters lest some of you fall across the ramblings of the drink addled and mistake their vague ramblings for fact. And so, dear browser, to the truth:

• Thursday 21 July : Trains, Pains And Edible Meals
• Friday 22 July : More Violence Than Sex, And The Faint Smell Of Fear
• Saturday 23 July : Benylin, Windolene And Less Than Perfect Timekeeping
• Sunday 24 July : Hangovers Of Mass Destruction

*OK, I have no idea what would constitute ‘fortunate’ bowel disorder, but what do you want from me?

Trains, pains and edible meals

There’s something incredibly bloody painful about getting up early, even if it’s only half an hour. But on Thursday it’s compounded by the need to hammer over to Inverurie train station where I can start my eight hour slog to Harrogate, armed only with a huge rucksack, a couple of paperbacks, and a picnic composed of what can only be described as ‘shite*’.

~ fast forward eight hours ~

There’s a weird-looking bloke hanging around outside the hotel when I clamber out of the taxi from Harrogate railway station. He’s hunched into himself, like he’s trying not to be seen, black pinstripe jacket, black clothes, beard and darting eyes. Feral. And oh Christ on a stick he’s recognised me... Turns out it’s Russel, who’s been there since the day before, living only on his wits and a caravan site. Nice bloke, if a bit from Fife (which he proclaims loudly when anyone dares to suggest he hails from Dundee).

Of course, the first port of call, after checking in, going up to my room, unpacking everything and stealing all the bath towels, is the bar. The bar. Take a good look round Mr MacBride, because this is where you’ll be spending most of the next three days. It comes as no surprise that Mr Rickards is also here. His first words are “You’re shorter than you look on your blog,” and so is he, being a mere slip of a thing with an attractive vegetarian brunette girlfriend (what she sees in him is anyone’s guess, maybe he has an attractive collection of shrews?). Meeting up like this, in the bar after ‘getting to know one another on the internet’ actually feels a bit like a blind date, only with no prospect of sexual favours at the end. It soon turns out that Mr Rickards has a disturbingly similar sense of humour to mine own. If it were not for the fact that I’m a lot taller than he is, saner, prettier, and have a proper beard, you might mistake us for identical twins. But no one could be mistaken for Agent Phil’s identical twin: when they made him the broke the mould, strangled the guy who’d designed it, and buried the debris in a septic tank. They would never make that mistake again! Agent Phil (why I’d love another drink) has a permanent smile and seems to be known by pretty much everyone. If only they knew he had a DARK SECRET.

The lovely Julia Wisdom has wangled me an invitation to dinner! Haha, food. And some drinkies too. It’s a hard life. The meal is a lot of fun, once I get over the whole shy, bearded ninny stage. This is the first time I’ve met Legendary Agent Extraordinaire Jane Gregory, a lovely, loud, funny lady who tells scandalous anecdotes and laughs like a drain. I like her.

Then it’s back to the hotel for the Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Novel Of The Year Award thingie. Excellent readings by Val, Simon and Mark, but special mention has to go to Stella Duffy who had to pretend to be Iain Rankin, Andrew Taylor and Minette Walters. Mark wins, but then you probably already know that... Incidentally, notice what a namedropping bastard I’ve turned into? "Oh yea, me and Mark were… what? Oh, Mark Billingham, anyway..." Thing is, everyone is so damn nice it’s difficult to think of them as Mr So-And-So anymore. Excessive consumption of alcohol seems to discourage formality.

It’s not till the end of the awards ceremony, when the party is beginning to break up into two camps – one in the hall and one in the bar – that I bump into Russel again. He’s in the company of a young lady I recognise from dinner (Jane brought Emma and Jemma {seriously – I’m not making this up} along from her agency) and Russel and I spend a while traumatising her with Tales From Darkest Fife. For some reason she refuses to believe us about Fife being notorious for it’s cannibalistic past. Probably just as well, as we’ve got our locations all screwed up and Sawney Bean was doing his long pig barbecue in Galloway, on the other side of the country instead. Fife is actually famous for Linoleum and being the birth place of She Who Must, not cannibalism. But you can see why it’s an easy mistake to make.

And speaking of alcohol, the evening ends at three am in the hotel bar, but by then it’s just me and Agent Phil. This is to become something of a habit...

* Actually, now I come to think of it, I could have just called it 'junk food', but it's too late now.

More Violence than Sex, and the faint smell of fear

Three in the morning, that’s when we left the hotel bar, having quaffed mightily from the cup of Bacchus. Or had a skin-full if you’re of a less classical bent. However, I have been Mr Cleverpants and been drinking water the whole evening in addition to the beer, wine and whisky. This means that I am able to function on Friday morning and can enjoy a vast fried breakfast before wandering into Harrogate for a look around. Nice place - puts me in mind of Guildford. Then it’s back to the hotel for Sex & Violence with Mark Billingham (well, he was gagging for it in the bar the night before). Good panel, though it was more violence than sex orientated. Which isn’t that surprising really, when you think about it. Can you picture the discussion? “Hello? My question is for Simon Kernick: when you write about willies, do you use your own for reference, or just make them up?”

Then it’s off into town for lunch – fish and chips – and back in time to change for the Fresh Blood panel. This is the reason I’m down here in the first place, and I’m sort of looking forward to it, in much the same way that a mongoose looks forward to falling arse-first into a cobra’s bedroom, wearing nothing but a tutu and a smile. Everyone else is a little squinky too, but we have Val to keep us right. She is seriously one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, and takes the time to tell each of us in turn how much she liked our books, making everyone relaxed and embarrassed at the same time. Then it’s show time and brave faces all round.

Val sits us round the table so that I’m on the end, next to Louise Anderson who’s a natural blonde and trouble with it. Everyone else is pretty sensible and sane, and Val keeps the whole thing moving with considerable aplomb. At the end of the thing no one has thrown anything, and I’ve only had the piss taken out of me once or twice. So better than I thought. People even buy some copies of Cold Granite afterwards, which is nice.

Five o’clock sees the Serious About Series panel, which is good, but as they’re queuing up to see Ruth Rendell a half hour before the doors open, I decide to give it a miss and go to dinner with Agent Phil instead. It’s a small tex-mex style place where the steak rules supreme – fillet for me, T-bone for Phil. When it arrives it’s bigger than his head, but he manages it anyway, gnawing away on his bone* in the corner of the restaurant like a tiny, shaved caveman. Then it’s back to catch the Ramon Chandler radio quiz style thing, which is excellent, and on to the bar to drink beer, gin (not in the same glass) and talk bollocks, both literal and figurative. I hold forth on my theory about Boobahs** and Tellytubbies*** and then The Nameless Horror goes badger crazy. Then it’s on to other biting mammals and rodents before I start winding Fiona McIntosh up. Which is kinda cruel, but fun. She’s been out to dinner with Michael M Smith ESQ and Alex Barclay (who I’d always thought was a man) and has possibly had a sherry or two, which leads to much loud laughing and fondling of John’s eggy chest, aided and abetted by Louise Anderson.

Someone not involved in any variety of fondling (well, not that I saw anyway) was Kelly. Kelly Edgson-Wright who complains she never gets mentioned on the blog. Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly (for those not in the know, Kelly is the Marketing Tsar at HarperCollins, and extremely funny, even without a couple of drinks in her). One by one the sensible people drift away to their beds, leaving the usual suspects to do the heavy lifting. Until half two in the morning.

Can you see a theme emerging?

* tee hee
** mind you, if I’d seen this bloody site first, I would have been able to add ‘Psychedelic Sixties Drug Craziness’ to the list of ‘they’re big sentient testicles’ arguments.
*** If you want to see a bearded crime write-ist go off on one, come up to me in a bar and start talking about Tellytubbies. Sinister Orwellian bastards.

Benylin, Windolene and less than perfect timekeeping

The day kicks off with another fried breakfast, only this time Agent Phil (who didn’t get out of his scratcher until gone ten the day before) actually appears before they finish serving! And he doesn’t look like an extra from Dawn Of The Dead either. In fact, given the drunkenness that went on last night, there are a lot of people down for breakfast today. This is because Reginald Hill is kicking off the proceedings with a nine am chat with Natasha Cooper, that’s worth a little early-morning hangover pain. And it is too – this has to be my favourite event of the whole programme, if you ever get the chance to chat to Mr Hill, definitely make the most of it. Very clever man with a dry and generous wit. Natasha is also well worth a chat.

There’s a round table on Raymond Chandler that I’d like to go to at 10:30, but I have another mission. Remember I said Agent Phil (are those really your knees?) had a DARK SECRET? It’s the fact that today’s his birthday and he has no idea I know, so I’m off into Harrogate to pick up a birthday card, cake, candles, a present, and some wrapping paper. That and the wrapping mean I’m not able to get back into the swing of things until the Historical Perspective thing kicks off.

After that, it’s back to Harrogate for me, along with Agent Phil (still none the wiser) and Gerry, one of his other clients who writes for the Telegraph in between working on what sounds like a very interesting novel of Dublin Noir. We have lunch in a Café Rouge -- mussels a la crème avec frites for me -- and take too long to get back to see Alexander McCall Smith, which gives me time to mill about, getting people to sign Agent Phil’s card while he’s in the Writer’s In Translation thing. Then evil Mr Rickards mugs some poor soul of her lighter, and we do the whole ‘Happy Birthday To You’ sing-along. Poor old Phil, now everyone knows he’s THIRTY FIVE! I run off before he can throw anything at me, hiding in the Humour in Crime panel.

Tonight, at six, HarperCollins is hosting a champagne bash in the hotel and jolly fine it is too. Alex (who isn’t a man at all) Barclay has put on a posh frock which gives her the air of a bondage air hostess, much to the delight of many of the male attendees. I’m really glad I opted for my David Hasslehoff impersonator’s outfit, because otherwise I’d be wearing the self same thing. Shaved me legs and everything. Alex is one of those people who you just know is going to be massive. Not just successful, but bloody huge, and she deserves it too. Michael Marshal (I still have difficulty thinking of him as a Mr Smith) has also forgone the posh frock option, but we’re all getting stuck into the champers and canapés, prior to disappearing off to have dinner with the rest of the HC crowd at eight. I feel more than a little guilty about abandoning Agent Phil on his birthday, but I hope the cake and card and present and song make up for it.

Dinner is in a swanky little barbecue place where Fiona McIntosh proceeds to chuck wine about drenching anyone unfortunate enough to be sitting opposite. Luckily it isn’t me. We have to be back at the hotel for ten to take part in the Crime Pub Quiz. Over dinner I have a chat with Mr Hill, who’s even nicer in person than he was on the panel. We will be in time to get back for the Pub Quiz. Nearly sixty percent of the table disappear off for a cigarette between courses. We’re going to have to watch the time, don’t want to be late for the Pub Quiz. Good googly-moogly, the restaurant actually serves crème Brule without ‘bits’ in it! No, rhubarb, or strawberries, or shortbread, or any of that muck. It’s after ten o’clock: we’re late for the Pub Quiz. Fuck. Cue frantic scramble for taxis back to the hotel.

We arrive just as they’re reading out the last two answers. Again, Fuck. Val’s dressed up in a billowing red satin dress with black spiders on it, the ensemble topped off with a sinister spider hat. It looks like the quiz has been a lot of fun. And we missed it. Thrice more Fuck…

The rest of the night is spent drinking the bar dry of vodka. Three in the morning and Michael, Alex and I are making up our own cocktails. Double Vodka, a dash of blackcurrant and a sploosh of Appletise. We call this the ‘Benylin’, because that’s exactly what it smells and tastes like. Which is lucky, because Simon Kernick’s voice sounds like the bottom of a birdcage. We force a couple of Benylins on him and make up another. Double vodka, Blue Curacao and Appletise. This looks like Windolene, but doesn’t taste as nice. Simon runs away, before we force any of that on him.

Come four-ish Alex is singing ‘You’ve lost that loving feeling’ with Michael and I acting as backing singers, complete with synchronised dance moves.

Come five, things have deteriorated even further, but someone postulates that breakfast will start serving in another hour, so we’re as well hanging on.

Half five and Alex tries mixing Benylin and Windolene in the same glass, takes one sip, goes a bit grey and has to wander about outside to get some fresh air.

Six in the morning and we ask the poor beleaguered hotel personnel, if they’re going to start breakfast soon. They tell us it’s not going to start till seven. Stuart gives up and goes to bed. What a wimp!

Hangovers Of Mass Destruction

Some bastard seems to have played a cruel trick on me. No sooner have I clambered into bed (having consumed fifteen gallons of water and some fizzy make feel good) than the bloody phone goes off with one of those automated ‘This is your twenty past six alarm call’ things. Arrrrrgh! I phone up reception and ask them to instate my proper one at half seven instead. The plan is to grab an hour’s sleep, go eat a huge fry-up to get a nice lining of grease on my innards, then retire to bed for a couple of hours. The last panel doesn’t start until 10:00, I’ll be relatively human-shaped by then. Only when half seven comes around, there’s no way I’m getting out of bed for anything short of a fire alarm, so I reschedule for nine. That’ll leave me half an hour to feed my face before staggering back to the room for a shower.

Only I can’t get back to sleep, can I? No I bleedin’ well can’t. I must confess that I feel fine, other than being completely knackered that is. I was shrewd and drank a lot of water the night before, in between and alongside drinks, but that doesn’t stop three very late nights catching up on me. Thursday: 03:00, Friday: 02:30, Saturday: 06:00. What the hell was I thinking? Actually, I know what I was thinking: ‘this is fun!’, that’s what I was thinking. You have to remember that we spend our professional lives sat on our own in front of the computer. All day. Every day for AGES and ages. Any chance to get out and actually speak to real people is to be grasped with both hands and squeezed till it squeaks. That’s my excuse anyway, and I’m sticking to it.

So up I get, into the shower, then pack up my troubles in my old kit bag for the trip home. Checkout is at 11:00 and I’m planning on attending the Forensic Science Experts’ panel which doesn’t finish until then. Downstairs is not very busy (surprisingly) except for next year’s Harrogate committee, who for some unfathomable reason are already embroiled in a nine o’clock meeting to go through the guest list for 2006 when Mark takes over the chair from Val. I, of course, have my mind on more important issues – scrambled eggs, sausages, mushrooms and hash browns. Mmm, breakfast. I’m nearly finished by the time Mr Rickards stumbles in with eyes the size of pinpricks and flesh as pale as a winter’s dawn*. And what does this bastion of noir and monkey testes have for his breakfast? Danish pastries. Big girl’s blouse that he is.

The forensic science thing is extremely good. They’re down one panel member, because DS Callum Sutherland has been recalled to London to attend the bomb scenes, but the remaining three people more than fill the available time. Next year I’m going to suggest a much longer panel for them. Nice people.

I’m just getting ready to head off for the train, when a nice lady asks if she can ask me some questions for her website. Of course she can, he says looking at his watch and trying to figure out what’s the last possible moment he can leave in order to catch the 13:33 to Leeds (if I miss it, then I miss the connection and the one after that – I’m on a long chain of station changes in order to get back home by about 22:00). We spoke briefly on the Friday night and she’s bought a copy of CG since -- must be my manly beard, gets them every time -- her friend tells me that she tried to get one this morning, but the festival bookshop’s all sold out. Hurrah! Take that Dan Brown. The weirdest bit is when I’m asked about a small passage at the start of the book: hearing it read aloud by another person I’m suddenly struck by the thought that it’s actually not that bad. Maybe I’m not the talentless hack I think I am? It’s a slim possibility, but I'll take what I can get... I have to make my excuses at quarter past one. I reckon if I run like buggery, I’ll make it to the station with a couple of minutes to spare. Not an easy thing to do, run with a rucksack full of books and pilfered hotel electrical goods. In hindsight, the 21 inch telly was probably a mistake, though I wrapped it in socks to make it look like dirty laundry.

By the time I get to the station, my legs feel like rubber and the rest of me feels like squeezed poo. Not only am I fat, bearded and Scottish, I’ve also passively smoked about three packs of cigarettes since arriving on Thursday. My throat feels like someone’s wedged a dandruff-ridden hedgehog in there. Pant, wheeze, cough, cough, wheeze, collapse.

It’s been an extremely good weekend. Very, extremely, outstandingly, synonym-isticly good. I wholeheartedly recommend Harrogate 2006 to any and everyone. But, by Christ am I glad to be home. My liver needs the down time.

*see, I can do literature

In training again

The good news is that I don’t have to get onto the train until one in the afternoon. The bad news is that I’m not going to get home until nine at night. And unless I’ve managed to be SUPER ORGANISED on Saturday, there won’t be any picnic to pass the time, or take my mind off all the dreadfully embarrassing things other people did last night. My conscience will be clear as a newborn lambs, of course. I’ll have been on apple juice and mineral water all night. Ahem…

So it’ll just be me, a hangover and an eight hour train trip. I’m sure I’ll be able to pick up a book for the way back. If not, it’ll just have to be sleeping on the shoulder of whoever’s in the next seat, snoring and drooling into their collar. Lucky soul.

Sunday is the cruellest hangover of all

You never know - maybe I’ve been a good boy and not drunk more than a small Jacuzzi of alcohol? And maybe there are such things as flying pigs, or politicians with integrity. As long as I’m up and about for the ‘Where did they go wrong’ panel starting at ten. Personally I know where I went wrong: dirty martinis in the hotel bar with Agent Phil (his trousers are actually supposed to look like that), Mr Rickards and anyone else suicidal enough to be doing tequila shooters at that time in the morning.

I have been given instructions to wish hello to Shirley and Angus Marshall, who are friends of the guy who sits in my favourite corner seat at INoGITCH. They won’t know me from Adam (as he also had a beard, and I’ll probably be naked, except for a leaf liberated from the cheese plant in the dining room), but that’s what conventions are for, isn’t it? Meeting naked strangers who smell of last night’s booze?

Saturday in Harrogate

Today the plan is/will be to go see some panels not featuring bearded sex gods such as myself. Reginald Hill is chatting with about his series and standalone books, but it’s, like, nine in the morning dude! I’m still going to be a breakfasting, unless I seriously get my finger out. Alexander McCall Smith might be worth a look, as will the ‘Humour in Crime’ thing. Then it’s off to the HC Champagne reception, where I can be a bad influence on Agent Phil (two drinks and he’s anyone’s). Mmm, publisher’s champagne…

I think the chances of getting into the Michael Connelly event are slim to nonexistent, but we’re ever hopeful of crashing the Orion party afterwards in his honour. Especially as we’ll be liquored up on fizzy wine by then. “Whaddya mean we can’t come in? Don… don you know who I am? Tee hee… Oh, Phil’s falled over…” Burrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp… “Come on Michael, lessh go for a kebab!”

Predicted hangover

I’m guessing that by the time this appears on the old Blogaroonie, I’ll be suffering from some variety of monstrous hangover. Last night was/will be the Harrogate opening party thing, where they announce the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award and hopefully hand out lots and lots of free Theakston’s Old Peculier. If you’ve never had it, it’s the beer equivalent of marmite – thick, dark, rich and delicious (OK, so marmite isn’t delicious, but She Who Must Be Mad likes it, so I thought I’d give it a plug), and very, very alcoholic. I plan to have drunk more than my fair share of it last night, so there’s no point trying to get any sort of sense out of me at the breakfast table, where I will be ingesting half a ton of greasy-fried animal products.

Agent Phil (have you seen my trousers?) is making noises about going for a swim every morning. Some hopelessly optimistic part of me thinks that this is a good idea for working off the drink from the night before. The more realistically-orientated rest of me thinks I’ll probably just sink. But I’ll pack the old trunks and give it a go anyway. Shock the locals with my pasty, Scottish body. That’ll teach them.

Mr MacBride, he not in

Nope, for today I’m away to Harrogate. If you look really closely at the aerial photo, you can probably see me – I’m the one with the beard.

Anyway, for the next couple of days I was going to hand you over to the dubious ministrations of the blogger time delayed posting thing, but it doesn’t work. So I have asked She Who Must to log in and activate the posts I’ve typed up in advance. I’m sure she’ll do a sterling job, but if it goes all quiet here until Monday, you’ll know why.

Mind you, as she’s going to have to activate this post, you might not even know...

The postman always rings twice – well, not round our house he doesn’t. When we bought the house it came with one of those wireless doorbell things that worked for a whole month before giving up the ghost. The DIY-madman who lived here before us had installed the button side of the thing upside down, so all the rain seeped in through the fitting and blew the circuits. Points for enthusiasm: ten, points for skill: minus three hundred and twenty four. Undaunted by this lack of technical perspicacity on the part of the former owners, Mr Postman makes with the loud knocking. And lo and behold, today he had two parcels for lovely, bearded me: one from Tambo, and the other from Lynn. Unexpected presents from across the water, and they’re mine, all mine!

Blade Dancer, Ghosts in the Snow and a sinister quilt

I’ve never had a quilt before, but now that I’m bequilted, I can look down my nose at those of you not in possession of such a fine accoutrement. Very cool is it not? That Tambo, sure can quilt.

Quilt, quilt, quilt.

Picnic time for teddy bears

Tomorrow starts the long trek to Harrogate – eight hours on four separate trains, changing at Aberdeen, Edinburgh and York – so today is PICNIC DAY! Yay! Off to Tesco in Inverurie (though they are utter bastards and haven’t the slightest notion what reciprocity means – She Who Must Be Fed Only On The Finest Shrew Pâté And Larks’ Tongue Mousse and I have spent a small fortune in that place over the last two and a half years, and do they stock my book? Do they hairy monkey bollocks.) to purchase some eatables to help pass the time. Some fine caviar? Nope. Don’t like caviar, it’s like eating nasty little fishy egg things – not nice. Instead I shall get some chicken and pickles and cheese and other such tasty treats. The sort of thing that will go well with a couple of crime novels and maybe a bit of plot planning.

I have no laptop any more – never got round to buying one – so I’m a bit stumped on the working front. Can’t stand to write longhand these days, as I’m invariably incapable of reading my own handwriting afterwards, so no keyboard equals no writing. Which makes for a grumpy Stuart. Hence the need for food as a distraction. Maybe that’s why I’ve put on weight during this edit?

Anyway, rambling to a close seems like the best option for this post, except perhaps to ask for people’s favourite picnic things. And you’re not allowed to say ‘ants’.

Once more unto the thumb-twiddling

No joy with the house painting at the weekend – the weather has been for jobbies, intermittent rain and other weathery things that mean the house still looks like it’s got mange. And the forecast is poo for the next few days as well, so chances are Casa MacBride will remain unpainted until I get back. Such is life. This means that I may not displace my pent-up doodad in frenetic outdoor activity and must stalk about the house in a sulk instead.

To kid on I’m a ‘glass is half full’ kinda guy, I’ve made a start on TFT. Not plotting, or planning, or any of those other sensible things I do with all my other books, just started in on chapter one. I know pretty much what’s going to happen already (in a vague and hazy way), so I’ve decided to just have some fun. Have at it, and all that.

Back when I thought about doing this I decided I wanted to apply the same kind of sensibilities needed for crime fiction. No rambling descriptions for page after page, no massive diversions to talk about socio-political bollocks, none of that introspection stuff. Get in – tell story – get out. Just like that. Not entirely sure if it’ll work, but then that’s the fun of having a go, isn’t it?

There’s no chance of this thing getting written in one go either, the edit for TDL will be back any day now (just keep telling yourself that Stuart and it’ll all be fine), so I’m only going to get a few pages into it before I have to stop. And once I’ve done any edity things asked for, I’m going to go back to TSA – the poor thing is only 58 pages long, and it’ll be getting cold – so there’s no hope of TFT being finished any time soon. I’m going to use it as an unwinding tool, or if I need a break to go think about something.

This means I currently have three books on the go at one time, something of a record for me. Maybe I’ll buy a hat so I know which head I’m supposed to be thinking with?

Mojito madness

Finally got round to buying the makings of Agent Phil(is that a AAA battery in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me)’s favourite cocktails yesterday: mmm, mojito... Luckily we have heaps and heaps of garden mint and the EC lime mountain at the moment, so much mojito madness ensued for me and She Who Must Not Be Allowed To Play With Matches.

Just as well, as today is going to suck the big aardvark; for today is ‘painting the house’ day. And no, there will be no parade, or bunting. This is scraping the old paint off the walls, only to replace it with new stuff. Why? Because the old stuff has been wearing off since we got here, leaving the house blotchy-pink in places. Which isn’t nice. Looks a bit like it’s got mange, to be honest.

On the positive side, we won’t have to do it again for at least another two years. Now all we need to do is sort out the garden, tear the bathroom out and fix up the guest bedroom and landing, and we’ll be able to rest on our laurels. Or we would do, if we had any. Guess we’ll just have to use a bench instead.

Yes, yet another Meme

But I totally kicked Jen's monkey ass, so I'm postin' the challange...

MacBride is a Haggis-Eating Super Monkey ...with a Battle Rating of 9.3 To see if your Food-Eating Battle Monkey can defeat MacBride, enter your name:

Three nights of drunken debauchery

Well, probably not so much of the debauchery, but plenty of drunkenness. The Harrogate crime festival is now less than a week away. It’ll be the first time I’ve ever attended one of these things, so not entirely sure what to expect. And as I’m going to be on a panel next Friday, I have even less idea.

I’m on with Louise Anderson, Catherine Sampson and Ilona van Mil, three lady writers and yours truly. Hmm, with my reputation? What were they thinking of? Mind you I’ll bet Val McDermid (chairing) will keep hanky-panky and other things that rhyme with ‘bondelling’ to a minimum ;}#

Then there’s all the drinking – Opening party on Thursday, drinks after the event on Friday (God knows I’ll need one after being on the panel. I used to be the kind of guy who’d think nothing of stripping off to my golden boxer shorts and dance about on stage with 20 or 30 lovely young ladies, but those days are long gone.) and then a super-duper champagne reception on the Saturday, courtesy of the lovely people at HC. Hurrah!

I also get to finally meet The Rickards, and I’m betting he’s even shorter in real life than he looks on his blog. Teeeeeeeny tiny. With big white trainers. Like a cartoon mouse, only without the ears. Not sure about the tail. I don’t know why, but I have the sneaking suspicion that this will prompt even more drinking.

The only thing I think we can be 100% sure of is that by the time I get off the train on Sunday (after a delightful 9 hour trip up from Harrogate, changing at Leeds, Perth, Dundee and Aberdeen) I will be a lot poorer, suffering from some sort of cold, and with a liver the size of a medium-sized Labrador.

Sounds like a good weekend all round then. Anyone else going?

Bottom of the pops

Agent Phil (smaller than your average bear) sent me up a photocopy from The Bookseller yesterday – it’s for the week ending 7th May 2005 and lo and behold, CG has scraped its way into the top twenty Original Fiction list. Didn’t manage to scrape in by much, but in it did scrape. Don’t know if it’s still there, but at least it was. Mind you they also have a top twenty for ‘Mass Market Fiction’, and another for ‘Fiction Hotseekers’. Christ alone knows what that all means, but everyone on every list had sold a lot more books than your bearded protagonist.

Still, mustn’t grumble – at least I made the list. Even if it wasn’t by very much.

Knickered, Knockered and Knackered*

The great time massacre continues. Yesterday was spent in contemplation of the jungle-flavoured front lawn. I’m not kidding when I say that in some places the damn stuff was thigh-high. As I battled my way through the steamy undergrowth, with machete, pith helmet and compass, I kept expecting to come across a lost city of the ancients. Or maybe some pigmies. Or a tiger… But no, it was just me, the baking sun and a Flymo that really isn’t designed to cope with the kind of grass you could hide an elephant in.

Why did I let it get so long? I was too busy sodding about with the edit for book two to even look at the lawn, let alone do anything about it. Mind you, that’s a pretty piss-poor excuse. Nothing was stopping me taking a half hour off to run the mower round it. Nope, just prevarication. Bad Stuart.

So that’s two days of forking about in the vegetable patch and one day fighting the Amazon jungle; I am well and truly pooped. Fortunately it’s going to rain all day today – which means no sodding about in the garden for me. Unfortunately that means I have to find some other way to kill time while waiting for the comments to come back on the edit. I suppose I could go write another shorty. Or maybe do something with the last one. Or maybe run around the house wearing nothing but socks and a smile. That’ll scare those damn under-stair monkeys!

* Actually, that sounds a lot ruder than I had anticipated

Gang Aft Agley

Well, you know what they say about the best laid schemes of mice and men – I’m betting that when it woke up yesterday morning the front half of the mouse I found in the porch probably hadn’t schemed to be separated from everything below its ribcage. That’s ganging pretty damn seriously agley, right there.

And I know where the back end of the thing is too – inside Little Miss Kitty Cat.

She’s become an unholy terror to the local fauna, sacrificing a minimum of one thing a day on her alter of blood and bone. This is the first time we’ve seen evidence of her actually eating someone though (well, other than bees, flies, beetles, forkytails and spiders), and given that she’s prone to doses of the Norris McWhirters I was surprised not to find something even nastier waiting for us when we got up this morning. But thankfully Mr Mouse seems to have agreed with her.

Scary

The Good Life?

If you’ve never seen it (possibly you’re American, or come from some other odd country where Felicity Kendal isn’t a sex symbol for ‘men of a certain age’), the Good Life is an old sitcom about a married couple who abandon the rat race to try their hand at self-sufficiency in a quiet residential street in the London suburb of Surbiton*. “Why bring this up?” I hear you moan in bored desperation, well, I’ll tell you: there’s a bit in the show where Tom Good (our hero, though without a beard, so you have to suspend belief a bit) goes out gardening in his dinner suit, as he’s no longer invited to anything where he’d need to wear a dinner suit. As far as he’s concerned, it’s just clothes now. This is where our rambling narrative coincides with real life: I spent yesterday out in the garden** digging out dirty big weeds from the vegetable patch, wearing a nice, white work shirt, so as not to get sunburnt. Didn’t go so far as putting on a tie (after all, the mice and shrews don’t stand on formality around here, they’re too busy scampering off in fear of the furry-monster-cat), but I don’t really need work shirts anymore, do I? Nope, not for me. I can work wearing whatever I want. And I’m not going to tell you about what I’ve got on as I type this, as I don’t want you getting all excited and making a mess of your keyboard.

Only trouble with this gardening malarkey is that it bores the living pants off me. I can’t stand it. But we’ve got nothing in the way of vegetables this year and if I don’t get my finger out and finish digging the bloody garden there’s no chance of any either. So all day yesterday and probably most of today as well, spent with fork in hand, fighting my way through a jungle of weeds. Tomorrow will be reserved for lying on the lounge floor in agony, unable to move.

Gardening always seemed so much more fun when Felicity Kendal was doing it…

* Incidentally, I bought the complete four series boxed set on DVD for She Who Must Be Bought Pretties From Time To Time for our tenth wedding anniversary. Mucho brownie points for me. What did I get in return? Good question…
** No edit back yet, so still killing time.

When good monkeys go bad

I think that of all the things I have seen beneath the stairs here, the most disturbing has to be the naughty monkeys. These used to be good monkeys, but now they have fallen into bad company and are not to be trusted any more. We have to sleep with an upright piano placed in front of the cupboard under the stairs, just in case they tire of their incessant boozing and fornicating, and decide to roam the house at night, their mischief to perform…

Themes and Memes

I don’t want to play, leave me alone poo-head boy. No!

OK, just a little,

1. ‘How I Ended World Poverty, Cured All Disease, Killed Everyone Involved In Those Bloody “Have You Had An Accident In The Last Three Years?” Adverts, And Became The Richest Sex God On The Planet’ by Stuart MacBride.
2. Never been to one, ask me again in two weeks time. It probably involves Rickards, Agent Phil, a psycho stalker woman and a complimentary jar of seedless raspberry jam.
3. Spike Milligan. Or that talking dog from ‘That’s Life’, you know, the one who said sausages? Heh, that would be awesome. “Sasssszagesss” Awesome.
4. Now and again I go a rambling, but I rarely ever go back. With or without a rucksack.

I tag no one else, because it’s a nice evening and you should all be outside playing, not pooping about on your computers.

A case of the trots

Saturday was spent in preparation for Sunday – not in a quasi-religious way, but in a 'long trip with a horse so it and it’s owner can spend an inordinate amount of time buggering about in the great outdoors with other like minded twits' kind of way. For Sunday has been The Great Endurance Ride* where about forty people who are WAY old enough to know better, go trotting about the landscape outside Huntly on their assorted equines, or ‘hairy rats’ as we’ll be referring to them for the remainder of this post.

The whole weekend has been scorching hot, the kind of heat that makes people who wear nylon slither inside their clothes, so the prospect of sitting in the car from hell for an hour there, three hours whilst She Who Must Be Stood Upwind Of After A Fifteen Mile Ride sods about over field and dale and another hour back, has little in the way of immediate appeal. Still, it keeps her happy and I am a good husband. Plus I look really good in a hat, sexy, but mysterious. Apropos of nothing, I know, but it’s these little details that lend verisimilitude to an otherwise boring tale. If nothing else it was a good opportunity to get stuck into Stephen Booth’s ‘One Last Breath’. A whole three hours with nothing to do except perspire, read a book and wonder if anyone would notice if I took a pee on their horse trailer. Not going to pee on our own one, after all…

Anyway, the highlight was probably meeting the woman who pulled up next to us, a Mz Ruth Randal. Oh, how I laughed – quietly and on the inside where no one could see – a little crime fiction punary, right there in the heart of hairy-rat-land. Of course, it would have been funnier if she’d known who I was, but she didn’t. Fortunately I kept my secret to myself, just in case she started wondering where the smell of wee round the back of her trailer came from**.

On the way back, tootling along at 45 miles per hour, I realised that there was an unforeseen bonus to dragging a dirty big rat halfway round the north east of Scotland in a trailer: I no longer had to worry about getting stuck behind some bastard in a caravan, or a tractor… now I was the bastard everyone else got stuck behind.

And somehow, that brings a smile to my face.

*In a non-smutty manner, so you can stop your giggling – Quertermous, I’m talking to you.
** Actually no, it wasn’t me, but discretion means I can talk no further on this topic.

Does anyone know what this bloody thing does?

When we bought our great petrol-guzzling poo-mobile the former owners were kind enough to not include the manual (we actually bought it from a garage, so we can’t exactly go round to their house and beat them about the head with a herring until they fork it over), so we haven’t got a sodding clue what most of the buttons in the damn car do, particularly the ones in the thingie above the rear view mirror.

Now I know Trace has one of these things and maybe some of the rest of you do too. So, I’m appealing to your better natures and community spirit – it’s a long shot, I know – PLEASE: tell me what the buttons do!

Into Darkness

"the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels."

St. Matthew 13: 39

Well, that’s the shorty done, but I can’t decide what to do with it yet. She Who Must Be Spanked For Stealing My Wine thinks I should store it up until I’m rich and famous, then publish it in some sort of asparagus-flavoured collection. Me, I’m not so sure. I’m tempted to go see Mr Q – he does lots of submissions to places that pay for short stories – to get some info on what the various requirements are. Then again, I have a history of being wrong, so maybe She Who Must is right. Imagine my chagrin if I, a number one bestselling crime write-ist (at least according to Waterstones I am in Scotland), can’t sell a story for toffee. Or any other form of confectionary come to that. Not even a handful of sport mix – which always tasted like hot vinyl upholstery smelled when I was a kid – let alone cash money.

I’ll ask Captain Q, he’s funny looking, but one must assume he knows certain things...

A consignment of Americana

Got a big box in the post today – my author copies of the US version of Cold Granite. And very nice it is to see them. Apparently it’s still to early to tell how the thing is doing in the good old US of A, but fingers crossed it’s going to be good enough to get me across there next year to press the flesh and eat more buffalo wings than any other sane human being has ever attempted. Bwahahahahahahaaa… *ahem*

On second thought,

There’s enough vitriol out there already. I’m off to write a short story instead.

Limbo

In-between sniffles, snorks and sneezes, I’m at something of a loose end. The latest draft of The Dying Light (and Christ help us, but there’s talk of a new title being needed for it) is in with HC, but my bevy of editorial beauties are suffering from a bout of corporate rearrangeitis at the moment, meaning everything has to be packed up into little boxes and shifted over to temporary offices, while someone tries to get that funky smell out of the carpet. This means that Mr MacBride – AKA ‘me’ – is in for a bit of a wait whilst all this gets sorted out. Probably only a couple of days, but it’s still thumb-twiddling time. Not enough of a break to get my teeth into something else, but long enough to make me feel twitchy.

I know how they feel though, INoGITCH had a similar addiction to rearranging things for the fun of it. Every two years most of us would have to shift cubicles, abandoning our little IT nesting boxes for somewhere else. Fun, fun, fun, especially as the place you ended up with was never as nice as the place you just left. And a year or two later, you got to do it all over again. Hurrah! Still, it probably seemed like a good idea at the time.

Anyway, the upshot is that I’m not exactly getting a lot achieved at the moment. I can’t go back to The Standalone, as that will mean getting my head out of TDL-mode, making it even more painful to get back into it when the office move is done. And as it’s only going to be for a couple of days, there’s not much point. I suppose I could go away and do some plotting for TFT, that’s different enough to make unlearning less of an issue, but then no one’s buying that kind of thing at the moment, so it’s pretty much time wasted. Mind you, I’m wasting time anyway...

Maybe I’ll go torment the cat.

All the things that shouldn’t...

I seem to have brought back an inadvertent souvenir from London, one that involves about three million hankies and a swimming pool full of mucus. Hurrah! Luckily I’m still awaiting feedback from the lovely Sarah at HC, so I can afford to be a dizzy, snottery, sneezy, falling about if he stands up, wreck at the moment.

Urrrrrgh...

And slowly, but surely, they drew their plans against us...

If punctuality is a sin, then Agent Phil is the most virtuous man I know. Honestly – we’re taking saint material here, but he gets away with it because he’s sweetly pretty (ahem) and a thoroughly nice bloke. This is more or less what I’m thinking as I stand outside the porch of my hotel in London, looking at the rain soggy streets and wondering where the heck-fire-and-tarnation he’s got to, for tonight is THE PARTY and I’ve flown down special, just to go stand in a tent in Hyde Park and drink champagne until I fall over. Or that’s the plan anyway. To facilitate this lofty goal I’ve booked myself into a ‘family run’ place about ten, fifteen minutes walk away from where the booze-up is being held: The Majestic Hotel – majestic by name… er… let’s leave it at that, shall we? There’s something lurking under one of the single beds in my room that’s either a very large raisin, or something I don’t want to think about. But everywhere else is booked out due to the Live8 concert, so I’m lucky not to be sleeping in a wheely bin I suppose.

Agent Phil has been stuck in traffic, along with the taxi driver, his taxi, and LUKE SPEED! Believe it or not, this is the man in charge of film and television rights at Marjacq: Luke Speed… I always think he should have his own theme music, so when he enters a rooms it’ll be, ‘tan-tan-ta tan, tan, ta taaaaa, Luke Speeeeeeed!’ Anyway, even with the traffic problems we’re only about half an hour late by the time we get to the party – more than enough time to get wellied into the champagne before they chuck us all out of the place at nine. Last year, or so I’m told, the party was held in a Bedouin tent outside the gallery, this year it’s a kind of large, squished geodesic dome thing in Perspex and wood, easily big enough to hold three hundred odd people. And yes, I do mean ‘Odd’ people. The assembled crowd are the cream of HarperCollins and some of the yoghurt as well; every author, writer and write-ist to have been published in the last year – fiction, non fiction and reference, and their assorted agents and, in one case, dog.

Now I’ve never seen writers en masse before. Heck, the most I’ve ever seen in one place at one time was when I was down for the BA gala dinner in April, and even then there were only three of them. There are probably more than a hundred of them here, schmoozing, drinking, eating canapés, and I have to say, we’re a bloody weird lot. There are at least four people who’ve obviously got confused in advance and mistaken this bash for a costume party – two gypsies in full, flowing, multicoloured skirts with dangly gold jewellery and headscarves (no, they're not together); one woman who thinks she’s a pirate; and someone else who I can only guess was mainlining absinthe when he was getting dressed in the dark three days ago. Luckily I’m wearing my David Hasselhoff impersonator’s outfit, so I blend right in.

Jane is away in Morocco at the moment, but Sarah is here and in fine, feline fettle telling us about what happened last year and why she was determined not to drink as much this time. I however, have no such compunction and get stuck right in. Which is probably just as well, I’m not overly comfortable in large groups of people I don’t know and the champagne helps to soften the bow. It also helps that Sarah is a perfect hostess, introducing me to people, staying to get the conversation going, handing me over to another member of the HC team while she goes off to make sure that the other two of her authors who’ve turned up are similarly looked after. And all this means that I’m actually enjoying myself. Sarah’s not just a pretty face.

Amongst the highlights of the evening are speaking to Stephen Booth, very funny guy – especially on being assaulted in the lift at an American convention by a pair of rabid old-lady fans, and actually meeting Michael Marshall while we’re both sober. Last time had been a bit of a disaster, after someone played a prank on Agent Phil at the Voyager Summer Party, telling him that Michael was the big fat guy with a beard in the corner (who turned out to be called ‘Brian’). This time is much better – he’s a nice bloke. We’re still chatting by the time they close the bar and there’s a huge bouncer shouting that it’s time for us all to bugger off out of it and sod off somewhere else.

Phil and I sod off into town with Mr SPEED (dum-da-da, dum, dum, da daaa) who’s off to a ‘rugby do’ which probably means drinking lots of beer and fiddling about with each other’s underwear. You know what these rugby types are like. Phil and I are off to a nice little cocktail bar, because we’re all sophisticated and stuff. We are even more sophisticated after four large martinis. So sophisticated in fact that Phil misses his last train and we have to sneak him into my raisin-infested hotel room. Cue much drunken snoring and farting.

The next morning we have to do the sneaking thing again, and thence to a greasy spoon for a much needed mound of fried things with extra grease. Lovely. Phil lurches off on the Piccadilly line for home, looking forward to nursing his hangover at the school sports day (he’s running the plate smashing stand, and you know that’s going to hurt), but I’ve got a few hours to kill before I have to get to Heathrow for my flight back up north, so It’s off to the Odeon in Leicester Square to watch ‘War Of The Worlds’, which wasn’t bad. Wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad.

London’s like an oven as I clamber aboard the crowded tube for the airport – everyone and their maiden aunt is converging on Hyde Park for the concert, but not me. I’m going to sit in the BMI business lounge and gorge on free crisps and orange juice (not feeling entirely up to a large gin yet) while I still have my silver card. I don’t suppose I’ll have it for much longer as I’m not flying anywhere near as much as I did when I was with INoGITCH, then it’ll be back to waiting in the normal lounge for me. That’s what I get for embracing the glitzy showbiz lifestyle of a full time write-ist I suppose.

And speaking of that glitzy showbiz lifestyle: it’s only three weeks to go till Harrogate and a beer-fuelled party extravaganza. It’s a hard life ;}#