Happy Beardday to me

Ah yes, another year older another year... well, not wiser certainly, that ship sailed off into the rose-tinted sunset a long time ago. Last transmission, 'Fuck! Iceberg!!!' Or maybe, 'Arrrgh! Pirates!!!' Something like that anyway, it's difficult to tell when your ears are full of jelly and ice cream*.

I know a lot of people are anti-birthday. They see it as another stony step towards the grave, the box, gonna be food for worms (to quote Alabama 3), but I see it as yet another three hundred and sixty five days of successfully cheating death. Hahahaha! Take that you bony-faced bastard!

And I have a veritable avalanche of cards this year (well, six) and only one of them has the kind of verse inside that makes me want to vomit! How cool is that? Not only do I have cards, I have presents! Which I shall now proceed to taunt you with: a new shirt and a case of beer. Mmm, beer... Unfortunately there isn't room for it in the fridge, so I'm having a pint of milk at the moment to clear up some space, but once that's all gone, it's welcome to beersville, population: me.

And as if that wasn't enough, last night She Who Must Occasionally Be Taken Out In Public Lest She Start Speaking In Tongues** And Communicating With Small Lumps Of Green, Hairy Cheddar From The Back Of The Fridge*** and I went to see HOT FUZZ and from thence to Pizza Express for... well... pizza.

And this morning I even managed to get my daily word count done. Which makes a sodding change. So all in all, not a bad day.

Added to all this, the Dutch thriller website Crimezone.nl has been reviewing DOOD KALM:

"In Dood kalm schetst Stuart Macbride opnieuw een ontluisterend beeld van het politiecorps in het granietgrauwe Aberdeen. Sfeer en toonzetting zijn keihard. Dit is het echte politieleven, niet geromantiseerd. Succes behalen en falen, vreugde en verdriet, uithuilen en opnieuw beginnen, elke dag opnieuw. Die onmenselijk zware taak ligt in handen van doodgewone mensen. Stuart MacBride is hun onbetwiste chroniqueur. Een topauteur."
There was talk of an interview going up on there as well, but I can't for the life of me find it. Maybe it's hiding?

To the fridge!

* Not jelly, ice cream and custard, mark you. That would make for an appallingly childish gag (go on, you know you want to).
** Which sounds REALLY weird when done with a Fife accent.
*** Where they're taking up valuable real-estate that could be better filled with BEER!

Reading stuff to people

I've got a thing on at Fyvie Castle soon -- an evening of drinking wine and reading stuff out loud. This will be my first official engagement (ooh, doesn't that make me sound just like the Queen Mother?) since crashing and burning at the Book Association Burns Supper, and I'm hoping the whole stain of crapulence will have disappeared by then.

In order to make things difficult for myself, I think I'll skip the usual DYING LIGHT reading bit and do something from BROKEN SKIN instead. And maybe something from the as yet untitled Book Number The Fourth.

The dreaded author reading can be a monumental pain in the arse. Which bit of the book do you pick to do? I don't want to give away any of the plot, so it can't be one of the pivotal scenes. I want it to be something that pretty much stands on its own with a beginning, middle and end, to give the reading a feeling of completeness. And a bit of shouting, humour and a soupcon of naughty words never go amiss either.

When I was doing the COLD GRANITE readings, I hadn't entirely grasped this. Instead I went for a character piece where not a lot really happens. Though it does end on a joke about Aberdeen's weather. (for those of you playing at home, it's the bit on the backdoor step in Torry, in the rain, with Logan, the Geordie and DI Insch)

For DYING LIGHT I went with the scene in the woods with the fog. This has swearing, shouting, running about and blood. It's self-contained: has a build up and a finale. It ticks the boxes and usually goes down OK. Plus it's a nod to some of my favourite horror film clichés, which is nice.

For BROKEN SKIN there's one scene that I think's going to work OK as a standalone reading. But I won't know till I actually try it. That or I could just do the first three pages. Which would probably work as well, but doesn't have any foul language. Well, maybe a little.

And for Book Number The Forth I think it'll be the bit I wrote on Saturday: a car chase. It isn't my usual thing, but again it can be taken completely out of context without spoiling the story. And I'd get to make Brrrrrrrrrrm, Brrrrrrrrrrrrrm, Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee noises, pretending to be a manky Vauxhall and a filthy Range Rover. See -- just like a grownup.

I frequently wonder what makes people pick the bits they read out at events. Sometimes they're extremely well chosen, other times they make me want to doze off for fifteen minutes or so, till the person stops talking. Sometimes I want to just charge the stage and stab them in the eye with a pen. Repeatedly. Screaming, "What the hell were you thinking?"

Mind you, some people don't read from their books at all. I have heard that Christopher Brookmyre, for example, does a short story instead. Which would be tempting, if I had time to write one. But I don't, so I can't.

Anyone want to share their thoughts: what makes a good reading?

An unfortunate convergence of events

This May I've been invited to participate in 'Word - University of Aberdeen Writers Festival' which is nice. They snubbed me the last two years, so to make up for it they're putting on an exclusive little event with me and Al 'is that a snorkel in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?' Guthrie. This will be nice for me -- though probably not the audience -- as Al is a way, way swearier writer than I'll ever be. I could finish this post with six hundred repetitions of the word, 'fuck' and still not come close.

This means I'll be the nice, polite one. For a change. Plus I look less like a hamster than he does, and that's always a bonus.

Mind you, he is also a very clever and devious fellow, so I'll still have plenty of opportunities for making a prat of myself. Especially if my recent performance at that bloody Burns Supper is anything to go by. I may be scarred for life...

Anyway, if you're lucky enough to be in Aberdeen in May, and daft enough to want to see a bearded-twit and the Human Hamster, we'll be swearing up a storm on Saturday 12th May at 1.30pm in King's College Centre at the University of Aberdeen.

Don't say you weren't warned.

And now: Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck, fuck...

Angry Baked Goods

There are many things it's not a good idea to do angry: drive a car, phone a loved one, deal with members of the police, or dismember a nun. Though sometimes the nun and police thing kind of blend into one another.

Today I are mostly pissed off by something I'm going to keep secret* and how did I vent my rage? My FURY? My mild peevitude? I baked scones. Good God, can you not just feel the unfettered testosterone dripping off your computer screen? When the going gets tough, the tough turn to baked goods. And not for any sort of sexual release, that's just wrong.

Of course never having baked scones before they didn't quite turn out as I'd expected. I think, technically, they qualify as an offence against nature. I like to make stuff up as I cook. "Why don't we try following the recipe for once?" asks She Who Must Assist In The Kitchen, hopefully. "Nah," says Stuart, "it'll be fine. What could possibly go wrong?" And besides, following recipes is a bit like reading the instructions that come with flat-pack furniture. Sure, you CAN do that, and be a good little drone, and maybe your wardrobe will actually look like the picture on the front of the box -- rather than a toy fort put together by cack-handed baboons -- but where's the fun in that? Life's too short to count grommet screws.

Though I might, just, have to admit that I maybe went a bit too far this time. Half the scones are cheese, the other half are fruit. All look like they've just escaped from The Island of Dr. Moreau. They taste OK, but they have more than just a little hint of Quasimodo about them.

Therefore I think we can forget 'moodstones' and all the rest of that New-Age jumbo mumbo: Scones are a window into the soul. Want to know if someone's pissed off or not? Force them to bake a batch of scones. They're like little psychic sponges.

It's cheaper than therapy and you can eat the results.

*Thus making it seem a lot more interesting than it actually is**.
** And no: it's not got anything with Mr Wignall's post, though that whole "Stuart and John Rickards look like peas in a pod, rather like the crime writing world's answer to Johnny Depp and Keith Richards as Jack and Grant Sparrow" thing did give me the creeps. In that scenario bags I being the young swashbuckling one with all the groupies. John can be the one who smells of ralgex and crack cocaine.

Birthday Boy

No, not today, that little epicurean delight doesn't occur till next Tuesday, when our bearded protagonist will be (cough-cough) years old. I think I'll be 25 again. That was a pretty good age. I was certainly a lot less creaky back in those days.

Of course, the impending birthday brings with it the annual dilemma: when She Who Must Express Her Adoration Of Her Bearded Sex God (that would be me) By Buying Him Something Nice For His Day Of Days sneaks up behind me and pounces the question, "What do you want for your birthday?" Like some sort of cross between Santa Clause and a Ninja. Only without the white beard and funky smell of reindeer poop.

And I have no bloody idea. I never have any bloody idea. This is the problem with not being all that materialistic: I don't really need any more stuff than I already have. I don't even have room for half the stuff I've got -- most of my birthday presents from years past are still sitting in the attic, in the boxes the were packed in when we lived back in the flat. And that was one house and five or six years ago.

But the non-materialistic argument does not go down well with She Who Must. There has to be something I want! Damnit! How about a nice jacket? I could do with a nice jacket, couldn't I?

Well, yeah, I suppose so, but this highlights a fundamental difference between men and women. Most women seem to like getting clothes as presents. Most men don't. Socks for Christmas? No. Jumpers for birthdays? Nope. Leather jeans and a chest wig for Valentine 's Day? Well... maybe just this once.

No: what manly men want are remote-control helicopters, an afternoon driving a chieftain tank through other people's houses, or an open-topped sports car. I'd quite like a huge farm upon which to build my dream house. But unless She Who Must Stump Up For Said Gifts wins the lottery this weekend, the farm and sports car aren't going to happen. Especially as she never buys a ticket. And as for the helicopter and tank thingy... I don't really need either of them, do I? So why waste the money?

I'd ask for suggestions, but I know what a bunch of perverts you lot are.

Dilemma...

I was lying in bed this morning pondering -- should I throw someone off the roof of a building, or dismember them? One is nice for doing on camera. The body getting smaller as it falls, the scream, the arms and legs pinwheeling, the thud as it hits the concrete fifteen stories below, splattering out, setting off car alarms. The other would be done off camera, so not as visual, but sort of thematic for the book as a whole.

Any thoughts?

It's a strange thing to do for a living: pondering violent death before breakfast.

Indolence and Requiem

Personally I blame She Who Must Be Pampered From Time To Time*. Saturday and Sunday were pretty much no-go zones where work was concerned. And no DIY was done either. Mostly it was sitting about watching telly, or playing with the cat. I did do a wee squidge of writing on the Saturday, sat in the Redgath (DI Insch's local pub), but it all came to an unceremonious end when a family with two squealing rug rats sat down next to me and started talking in loud voices about where they were going for their holidays. Poop-heads.

But other than that: nada. Instead we made a big thing of mulled wine, listened to the rain hammer against the conservatory roof, and watched a couple of episodes of GBH. Most enjoyable it was too. That's the strange thing about this writing malarkey: it's a seven days a week job, with no time off for good behaviour. But then again, you get to commute in your slippers and spend all day in your jammies. So it's a swings and roundabouts kind of thing.

Speaking of jammies, mine are dead. They are no more. Well, the sort of are, but not by much. The backside is hanging by a thread, exposing my exciting Spiderman underwear whenever I bend over. They've been falling apart for weeks now, but I've been able to hide the fact from She Who Must Patrol The Clothes To Make Sure Her Hubband Isn't A Scruff-Basket by only wearing them for work. Then she was ill last week and spotted their saucy peek-a-boo nature, so I was dragged to Tesco last night to pick up a replacement pair. *sigh* Alas poor jammies, I knew them well...

Of course, they've stopped selling proper men's Jammies (at least at my local one), so I was forced to purchase a strange long-sleeved T-shirt with thin grey jogging trousers. Not the most flattering -- I look like an overgrown, bearded baby. And to add insult to injury, the T-shirt part has the numbers '41' printed on it. I'm not 41! No matter what that trouser-biscuit from the Sunday Times says. Not even vaguely 41. Arrrrrgh!!!

Anyway, I've dug the decrepit, escape-flap, button-up, red tartan jammies out for one last outing before they're entrusted to the great big dressing gown in the sky. Goodbye Jammies, you'll be sorely missed.

*sniff*

* Not 'Pampered' as in someone who has been made to wear nappies -- after all, we're not Members of Parliament, who apparently pay good money for that sort of thing.

And Mighty Was Their Wrath!

Oh mighty gods of MOT, I beseech thee: make not mine bill larger than the gross national product of an small country. But the gods of MOT didst look upon mine supplication with scorn.
"Thy front brakes are shot," the High Priest didst say, "and thy fog light is mightily fucked, as are thy brake lines."
And mighty was mine lamentation. "Oh High Priest of the vengeful MOT gods," I didst wail, "How much will this set me back?"
And long was the pause, and mighty the sucking in of breath between his teeth. "Thinkest thou of a number, double it, add the total number of feet on a millipede and the bra size of Anne Widdicombe. Multiply this by the number thou didst first think of and add a zero at the end. It is best that thou offer up thy credit card as a sacrificial offering."
And I dist fall to the garage floor and tear mine beard out in woe.
"Plus," sayeth the High Priest, in his greasy, oily overalls with 'Bill' written upon the chest, "the off-side running board is loose, but I shalt let thou away with a warning this time."
And great was my lamentation.

Sodding MOT. Why can't the UK be more like Iowa, where they have Famous Dave's BBQ and you don't have to MOT trucks? I knew I'd gotten off lightly last year*, but I more than made up for it this time round. I'm beginning to seriously hate cars. Grrrrrr!

And just to add insult to injury, the passenger seat's come back with a nasty brown stain on it. Like a skid mark, only inside the car. I'm not proud, but I feel compelled to try cleaning it off, or everyone's going to think I give lifts to people with serious rectal problems.

And what the hell's this business with 'off-side running board'? I thought he was going on about the passenger side, so I didst waggle mine finger and tell him that the thing's been shored up by a nice man with a MIG welding kit. I know this, because I was there at the time. But it turns out that 'off-side' is the driver's side. EH? Surely that's the 'on-side'.

According to She Who Must Be The Font For All Horsey Knowledge And Shout At The Telly When Period Dramas Are On And People Are Riding The Wrong Kind Of Horse, Or Using The Wrong Piece Of Leather To Steer The Damn Thing, this is all because when you get on a horse, you do it from the left side. Hence the right (the proper side for the driver to sit on, you foreign devils with your heathen wrong-side-of-the-road-ishness) is the 'off' side. Well that makes sense, doesn't it? I mean the similarities between a mammalian quadruped that subsists on a diet of grass, grain and polo mints, and a one ton mechanical hunk of steel and rust are overwhelming!

You try pulling up to a petrol station and filling your horse up on Diesel, see how far it gets you. Leaving aside the fact that there's no place to stick the petrol pump's nozzle (unless you're a seriously disturbed and deviant individual) it's likely to prove fatal. Horses kick you know. Plus anything that falls out the back end of a car isn't likely to help your roses grow.

* And before you say anything: I know I used the self same bible set-up thing last time, but I've been traumatised by a huge garage bill, so leave me alone. You're getting this crap for free after all (yes: I know it shows).

In which our bearded protagonist fears he is getting old.

I have a confession to make -- no not the one about that dismembered nun and a small collection of shallow graves -- I'm turning into a grumpy old man. This is, obviously, isn't fair. I am in my prime after all. *ahem* But every time I wake up in the morning I hear something on the news, or in the newspaper review that has me staring at the ceiling in outraged, forehead-slapping astonishment. Usually accompanied by various swearings.

I never used to do this. I used to sleep right through the alarm and then panic my way through getting dressed -- which explains some of the funny looks I used to get from co-workers at INoGITCH -- breakfasted and out of the house. The world at large tromped happily in one ear and out the other, not even pausing to wipe their feet on the way. A conga line of uncared for facts and idiocy.

Not any more. These days it's like the rotten little buggers are wearing superglue smeared crampons.

Take this morning's incredible feat of cock-weasel / whatthefuckery Patricia Hewitt (she's the Health Minister In Charge Of Making Stupid Fucking Pronouncements for those of you still living in blissful ignorance, or overseas) announced that fewer NHS hospital beds was a good thing. Yup: a GOOD thing. Not a BAD thing. A GOOD thing.

Apparently, the reason fewer beds and fewer nurses (Hewitt's own local hospital has just sacked 200 members of staff and got rid of 200 beds) are good for you, is because you can be seen closer to your own home. By whom? One of the surgeons, or nurses she's just sacked? Maybe they'll roam the countryside: itinerant healthcare professionals, lancing boils and solving crime and saving Little Timmy when he falls down a well.

What happens if they go feral? You'll be taking a nice relaxing afternoon walk and suddenly BOOM! Doctors and nurses jump out of an abandoned hedgerow and wheech out your appendix. Who was that masked surgeon?

That's brilliant! Points out of ten to that ministerial tosspot!

So, if you suffer a stroke, or an aneurism, or even just break a leg, don't worry, because some magical medical pixies will whisk you away to see a specialist! You may die on the way, because Christ knows how far away it'll be from where you actually collapsed, but not to worry, eh? Who wants to be treated in a stuffy old local hospital anyway?

Remember: "Fewer beds are a sign of success, not of failure."

I'm sure that'll bring everyone a great deal of comfort next time they're lying on a hospital trolley in a corridor somewhere. Or sprawled in a ditch, wondering where their appendix has gone.

Is it any wonder a third of GPs have private medical insurance?

Writing in a winter wonderland

Well, maybe not that wonderful, but writing nonetheless. After Friday's shameful display of speechifying I took a couple of days off to reflect quietly on the vagaries of life. And sulk. OK, so mostly it was sulking. But now that the fog of regrets is beginning to lift, I went back to read through Book Number The Fourth from the start, looking to see if it was a shite as I thought. And it isn't.

Which is weird... Normally I hate these things while they're in progress. They're always cringe-making. I can only assume that I've lost too many brain cells over the Christmas period this year to notice.

Alternatively the writing pixies have paid a visit and have been tidying things up without me noticing. Usually they're pretty obvious, what with their neon-orange jumpsuits and tiny belled feet, singing Show Tunes and jumping up and down on the keyboard to make words that aren't crap. And are spelled right, and make up, like, you know, meaningful sentences and junk. We've not had a visit from the writing pixies for a while. Not since Grendel ate the last lot, thinking they were particularly camp mice.

Or it might just be the brain cells thing.

So, if you see any loose brain cells, or have any of your own to spare, sling them my way, would you?

The number of the beard

I know a lot of authors who watch their Amazon ranking in much the same way that a Catholic priest might a group of choirboys in the shower. Personally, as I've probably ranted on about at length, I'm not in the least bit interested (well, maybe if it was Gloria Hunniford and Anne Widdecombe in a bath of warm raspberry jam*...). Amazon rankings don't actually mean anything: they're based on 'proprietary formulae' that have bugger all to do with how well a book is actually doing.

That said: they do sometimes display a scary prescience. Agent Phil emailed me the other day to say that the paperback of DYING LIGHT had hit the mystical number of six hundred and sixty six...

Of course, if Stephen Fry is to be believed (and who am I to call him a liar -- you don't get a nose that shape by picking it**, you get it through violence) then the number of the beast isn't 666 at all. It's a translation error, the REAL beast's number is 616, but someone thought that didn't look right and changed it***. See: that's the trouble with editors: no respect for the original. Probably played havoc with the poor buggers semicolons too.

And now, I'm back off under my rock.

* Though it would have to be seedless, otherwise it gets caught in their purple PVC thongs.
** Unless you're very, very clumsy. Or overenthusiastic. Or have HUGE fingers.
*** This sterling fact brought to you courtesy of too many nights sat on the sofa watching QI.

Oh sweet hairy Jesus

We interrupt our usual rambling nonsense to issue the following apology to anyone who attended the Scottish Book Association's Burns Supper in Edinburgh last night. I was giving the Toast To The Lassies... and I was shite. Bit the big one. Sucked ass like a professional ass-sucking machine. Was totally and utterly fucking rubbish.

I completely misjudged the audience when I was writing the thing. COMPLETELY. I'd gone for 'gently poking fun' and it went down like a wet fart halfway through a 69. I died on my arse. And in the silence, instead of leaping off and going in a different direction, one that the audience might have actually enjoyed, I clutched desperately to the sinking ship of my speech, getting faster, and faster, and faster... till all the lines were blended into one long stream that sounded a bit like a lawnmower giving birth to a shopping trolley.

I've never gone down so badly in my life*

The evening was only rescued by the lady who did the reply to my cack-handed garbled toast. She was very, very vicious, and very, very funny. Thank God.

I was so embarrassed that I didn't hang around for long after the end of the dinner. The few people I spoke to were very kind and lied about the thing, but I only lasted till quarter past twelve before sloping out with my head held low.

Truly dreadful.

The next morning, a tad bleary eyed from having berated oneself all sodding night for being so unbelievably crapular, I went for a walk into Edinburgh's town centre. Normally I would have popped into some bookshops to see if they wanted any stock signed. But I was so fucking embarrassed by my performance the night before I just couldn't face meeting anyone else who'd had to suffer the thing. So I went for a couple of pints and nearly got attacked by a nutter instead. Happy days.

Anyway, so: as I said, I'd like to offer a full and unconditional apology to anyone present. And say a heartfelt thank you to those kind souls who managed to force the occasional titter.

And now I think I'm going to go crawl under a rock for a while...

* And no -- that's not another oral sex reference

Groundhog Day

Yes, this is that extra special annual event when Steve Brewer* sticks his head out of his burrow, and if he sees his shadow we're in for another six weeks of winter. Mind you, as Steve's turning fifty today I wonder if he'll be able to see anything at all, having probably spent his last night as a pre-quintegenarian drinking his own bodyweight in harsh grain liquor.

I first met Steve at Left Coast Crime in Bristol, we were to be on the same panel. He was wearing a fetching little, red, off-the-shoulder number, with those high-heel slingbacks he likes so much. Not an easy look to carry off when you're about seven foot eight with a Grizzly Adams beard, but... well... let's be honest -- he looks more like an escaped mental patient than Greta Garbo, but it's the thought that counts. More medication would probably have helped.

But even if he did look like a transsexual hooker who'd let herself go, Steve was lovely, funny bloke. And he was even funnier when it came time to clamber up onto the little podium / stage thing to do the panel. Damn his rheumy, ancient eyes. Upstaging me with his bigger beard, taller personage and slinkier dress.

Oh yes, and he also writes damn fine, very funny crime novels. He said in a shameless book pimpage kind of way.

Anyway, Happy Birthday Steve!

* Photo nicked from NYC Photo