The March To Victory

Following the successful launch of my Bearded Manifesto on Saturday I have considered the submissions of those concerned. Even though Mr J Winters thinks my plan for Paparazzi bashing doesn't go too far enough, I'm going to reject his call to have them hunted to extension by members of the general populous.

Instead I'm going to save that fate for those so-called 'street performers' who stand about pretending to be statues, or even worse, the bastards that pretend to be trapped inside invisible boxes, or walk into pretend wind, or do that bloody awful one-man tug of war thing! Aaaaargh! A scurge on our society, and not one that we will let continue. Come the glorious day of my electoral ascension (following the obligatory party and hangovers) I vow that all mime 'artists' will be locked in genuine glass cages. Which will then be slowly filled with rabid weasels. Angry rabid weasels. Angry rabid weasels who've been driven mad by repeated exposure to that bloody awful 'So here it is, Merry Christmas' song by Slade.

And any anyone who gives these bastards money (the Marcel Marceau wannabees, not the rabid weasels of insanity -- you can give them money with impunity if you want to, but you'd have to be pretty daft. It's not like they can spend it.) will have really sticky packing tape wrapped round their personal hairy bits and yanked off. Then they'll be covered in creosote.

Together we can erase this blight from our high streets and byways!

So on May the third
VOTE MACBRIDE
Tough on mime, tough on the causes of mime.

The bearded manifesto

You know, people often ask me what I'd do if I ruled the world. Obviously this is because I'm the kind of man that men want to be, and women want to be with. Until they find out about my obsession with kidnapping Gloria Hunniford, skinning her alive, then wearing her pale, white epidermis as a kind of leathery smoking jacket. Only I don't smoke... I do drink red wine though, so it could be a drinking jacket. And I'm sure there'd be enough spare flesh for some nice deep pockets in which to smuggle partially-drunk pints out of bars.

Anyway, leaving aside my wholesome obsession, I have given this world dominion thing a bit of a think and decided that it's best to start small. Maybe by having myself declared Supreme Ruler of Scotland in the May the 3rd elections. To this end, and so you, the unwashed masses will know what you're voting for, I hereby unleash my manifesto for a better tomorrow.

1. Reintroduce capital punishment for Barry Scott and any other shouty bastard off the telly I don't like.
2. Make wearing white socks with black trousers and black shoes punishable by enforced public humiliation and having the word 'TOSSPOT' painted on the perpetrator's head in indelible ink.
3. My birthday to be a national holiday. Everyone to chip in and buy me a nice present.
4. All families in the UK to be forced to buy at least one book a month. None of which are allowed to be an autobiography by some vacuous celebrity whom everyone knows to be illiterate.
5. All adverts for low cost loans, debt consolidation, or suing the arse off everyone because you're too stupid to put on your own trousers without causing yourself an injury to be banned. All those involved in producing said adverts to be stripped of their dangerous trousers and spanked on national television.
6. August 22nd to be 'National Crime Fiction Day' Everyone must buy at least three crime novels (one of which has to be mine, obviously) and then talk about them in the pub. At great length. While drinking lots of beer. These three books do not count towards your twelve total for the year. They're a special treat.
7. All producers of reality television shows to be taken outside and nailed to a tree alongside Barry Bastarding Scott. If the television show involves 'celebrities' getting voted off every week, then punishment to include being nailed into a barrel of human excrement first.
8. No one is allowed to invade countries they can't spell the name of.
9. Being a member of the paparazzi will become an extreme sport. If you hang around outside nightclubs / gyms / Marks and Bloody Spencer / other people's houses in order to take candid photographs of them looking fat and or ugly, the person you're photographing will have the right to take a swing at you, if they can catch you. And you can't then sue them for emotional distress or breaking your nose, you parasitic bastard. The person can also hire someone else to smack you one. But as I am a beneficent dictator they're only allowed to hit you once. But they can use baseball bats if they like.
10. Breaking wind and then blaming someone else to be made illegal. Especially if it's a really eggy one.

I will now open the floor to reasoned debate and suggestions for additional manifesto items.

VOTE MACBRIDE!

Takin' care of business...

Well, it's Friday, and what's Friday for if not blatent self-promotion. And possibly running round the garden in your underpants, singing rude sea shanties at the top of your voice. What do you mean you don't know any rude sea shanties? What the hell is wrong with you? Make some up! Honestly, do I have to do everything around here?

Anyway, yes, BSP time. There's a wee interview up on the Rap Sheet today where I attempt to answer that perennial question that every writer dreads: "Where did the idea for XXX insert name of book here XXX come from?"

I should point out that in the course of his introduction Mr Karim (as we now apparently have to call him on account of him getting the corrective surgery) insinuates that I was all aquiver when I went to collect my honorary handshake for getting an ITW nomination at Left Coast Crime last year. Lies! Lies! I was not even slightly aquiver. I was a quiver-free zone. Good God man, I was holding a glass of champagne at the time! Quivering would have resulted in spillage of precious, precious alcohol. And you all know how we feel about that at Casa MacBride.

So leaving aside the EVIL BLATANT LIES about quivering, the article also features a fetching photo of myself and a certain father-to-be. In the background, you can see Mr James, either sniffing his own fingers (unwholesome) or trying to staunch the urge to vomit. As he's sitting next to John Rickards, I'm hoping it's the latter.

Actually, coming back to the EVIL BLATANT LIES for a moment, you know how Mr Karim justifies his slanderous assertion of quivering? He has a photo of me getting my hand shook at the time, and it's all out of focus. This, he maintains, is evidence of excessive quivering on my part causing his camera to shake. LIES! It was all the beer and finger sandwiches he'd consumed. I can't be held responsible for that, can I? Unless of course he was intimidated by my manly source of ultimate evil. That would make anyone shiver.

Quivering indeed...

Where was I?

Ah yes, underpants and sea shanties.

"There once was a nun from Nantucket,
Who liked to go pee in a bucket,
And under her habit she kept a pet rabbit,
And three times a week she would..."

Barry Scott must die

Now you know me: I'm not one to lightly incite people to violence, but I think it's well past time Barry Scott of the Cillit Bang adverts was dragged outside, nailed upside-down to a tree by his misshapen leathery genetalia and beaten to death with two-by-fours. Burning two-by-fours. Burning two-by-fours with nails hammered into them. Then dipped in dog doo.

And if you're thinking, 'Poor old Barry Scott, whatever did he do to deserve this venomous hatred?' you need a serious slap. He's a shouty-headed bastard!

Stop coming on my television screen and shouting about your bloody limescale! I'm not hard of hearing and my TV comes with a volume control. SPEAK AT A NORMAL LEVEL you badger-molesting tosspot. If I want you louder I'll turn you up. AND I DON'T WANT YOU LOUDER. I don't want you at all! Except dead.

And you're not even real: you're made up. You're a pretend celebrity no one's ever heard of.

Why? Why the hell is he pretending to be Barry Scott? Who the testicles is Barry Scott meant to be when he's at home, polishing his fixtures and fittings*? Why not come on shouting, 'HI, I'M NEIL BURGESS**, AND I WANT TO YELL AT YOU AT THE TOP OF MY VOICE UNTIL YOU START A CAMPAIGN TO HAVE ME DRAGGED INTO THE STREET, NAILED TO A TREE AND BEATEN WITH SHITTY STICKS!' Who the arse-flavoured hell is Barry Scott supposed to be? I mean are we all supposed to go, 'Well, I've never heard of him, but he shouts a lot so he must be famous. I'd better rush out and buy whatever it is he's bellowing on about.'

AAAAAAAAAAAArgh!

The fictional bastard even had a blog for a while. Shame he doesn't still have it or we could all go visit and threaten to get medieval on his arse. And as he's not a real person, the police couldn't touch us for it. Bwahahahahaha

In fact, that should work for any made-up person. Let's all go make death threats to Mickey Mouse. The rodenty bastard isn't even human. No court in the world would convict us!

So on May the 3rd: Vote MacBride for a saner world!

* Pervert
** The actor who plays the roaring cock-weasel

Seven days

I realised something odd today: it's only seven days till Book Number The Third comes out of the bondage closet, looking for someone to spank. I'd thought it was ages and ages away. But it isn't. It looms on the horizon like a big looming thing.

LOOOOOOOOM!

It's going to be interesting to see how this one goes. I know a lot of people (mostly drug addicts, winoes, and the sexually experimental) who think that it's the best book so far... not in the whole world, obviously. I mean that accolade's probably gone to something more highbrow that doesn't feature Police Constable John 'Spanky' Rickards. You know, something like Doctor Zhivago... And that bugger never made house calls, did he? I'll bet if you called old Zhivago MD up in the middle of the night with horrific stomach pains and he'd tell you to sod off and make an appointment with the surgery. And that'll take about a month. Which isn't what you want to hear when the world's falling out of your bottom in the form of napalm-like Brown Windsor soup.

Anyway, leaving aside Dr Zhivago's piss poor bedside manner, I'm guessing that BROKEN SKIN is going to have to work like stink to come even close to DYING LIGHT's unexpected heights of success. This is because while Tesco and Asda took Book Number The Second, neither is taking Book Number The Third. And not because they didn't sell shedloads of DYING LIGHT, but because that's the way the market is at the moment. They feel they can make more money elsewhere.

It's kind of strange, knowing before the thing's even published that it's not going to do as well as the last book. No matter how much people like it. Without supermarket support it's not going to get anywhere near the bestseller lists. Because let's face it, if you're not lucky enough to make it onto the supermarket shelves these days, you're not going to make the Sunday Times top ten. Market forces and all that.

That's one of the problems with early success, I suppose: you're always expected to better it next time round.

Still, perhaps Book Number The Fourth will be a little luckier when it comes time to do the distribution thing? If not it won't be for lack of effort on the part of HarperCollins, who've always done their damnedest to get the book in front of people. Like little rabid terriers, so they are.

I suppose all I can do is be the best gosh-darn write-ist I can be! He said, in full-on cheesy bastard mode. With optional wink and thumbs-up gesture. Oh yea, feel the cheese baby!

To the beard cave!

Tuesday

Well, I say Tuesday, but we can't tell for sure, can we? It might still be Monday in disguise, trying to lull us into a false sense of security. Bastard. Anyway, today I are been mostly making up nasty stuff and doing my VAT return. Which is similar, only a lot less fictional. Actually it's not fictional at all. Not even vaguely fictional.

Oh by the sainted hairy Jesus, why did you have to imply that your VAT return was fictional? Are you mad? Don't you expect the Spanish Inquisition?

Just in case there's anyone from Her Majesty's delightful Customs and Excise reading this, maybe while they're waiting for the pokers and needle-nosed pliers to warm up, I have nothing but the utmost respect and bowel-loosening fear for you and your professional position. Which I believe is usually bent over some poor screaming miscreant, trying to extract his spleen through his bellybutton.

I would like to formally state that I am scrupulously honest when it come to dealing with the representatives of Her Majesty's Departments Of Pain And Cash Extraction, because I know that if I ever tried anything fish-flavoured I'd get caught. God knows why -- I've always been a good boy, washed me face and hands before I come I did -- but I'm certain that any impropriety on my part would result in an internal body cavity search involving porcupines and Ralgex. And it's not bloody worth it.

Doesn't mean I got to like it though...

Jumpers and whisky ahoy!

From the 21st to the 23rd of May Shetland's population will be swelling from 21,990 to 21,991. And that extra one will be me! In all my bearded glory.

I have to say that I've always fancied a trip to Shetland, especially as I'll get to go on the ferry. Tooooot -- tooooot! All the way from Aberdeen. Which I think should give the whole trip a romantic feel, if tinged with seasickness and the smell of herring innards. I've been invited up for a positive plethora of eventy goodness.

On the 21st I'll be drinking whisky and talking to local writers' groups.

On the 22nd I'll be drinking even more whisky and talking to readers' groups in the Shetland Library.

And on the 23rd it's going to be some sort of strange ceilidh-style thing with musicians and local writers and hopefully yet more whisky in the library again. Hurrah! There might even be dancing. After I've got a few nippie sweeties in me, who can tell how the evening's going to turn out?

And then I get to haul my hungover arse back on the ferry for an overnighter back to sunny Aberdeen. Which does worry the hell out of me. I've got to be in Peterhead for half nine in the morning, but the boat doesn't get in till seven am. Worry, worry, worry... And the day after that it's the Falkirk readers' day! Eeeeek!

But Shetland should be a lot of fun. And one of the benefits of doing three events in three nights, is that I'll actually be able to see a bit of the place during the day. Which will make a bloody change.

We've never had a problem we could solve by giving away a family member before.

Well, I think that the 'BROKEN SKIN and BLOODSHOT are the same damn book' thing has been up for long enough. From here on in, anyone who buys the pair of them only has themselves to blame. We've been on to Amazon too, so hopefully that should sort it out.

In the meantime, things have been afoot at Casa MacBride. Actually, they've been more ahoof than afoot, but the basic principal's the same. We have given a family member away. Not me, thankfully. And certainly not Grendel. But She Who Must Be Treated With Kid Gloves And Chocolate's pride and joy: the Boy Rat. Yes, Jasper, horse of the house, has gone off on loan to someone who has a big field, other horses, and a collection of dirty big electricity pylons.

This is what happens if you misbehave in my household!

He's been suffering from arthritis for a couple of years now, but it's finally got to the stage where he's no longer able to school and do all that dressage poncing about that She Who Must Be Ribbed About It Endlessly likes to do. So while Jasper goes off to enjoy a semi-retired lifestyle of shuffleboard and the odd game of bingo, I'm going to be enjoying the delights of having a wife who doesn't always come home smelling of horse-wee every night. Now some nights will be horse-wee free!

And far from being the emotional tear-jerker that I thought it was going to be, leaving Jasper at his new home was surprisingly uneventful: the little fat sod just stuck his head into the fresh grass and tried to eat his own bodyweight in under fifteen seconds. All his new horsey chums trotted up to say hello, and he said, 'Can youse not see oi'm eating? Feck off.' And they did canter after him, saying, 'Who are you? Are you going to play with us? Are you here to stay?' And he said, 'Feckin' hell, oi'm eatin' me tea here! Bugger off out of it, youse feckin' rat-faced bastards...'

We brought him up nice and polite.

Now we have to wait and see if he kills someone. If he does we'll have to take the tubby, wee sod back and find somewhere good to hide the body. Lucky we're surrounded by pig farms, eh?

Beware the Ides of August!

Ever since Amazon.co.uk put BLOODSHOT up for pre-order I've been getting emails from people wanting to know if this is a new book? And old one rebranded? Something entirely different, like, say, a box of cornflakes cunningly disguised as a filth-ridden crime novel with optional nudity?

Nope, it's the US version of BROKEN SKIN. Identical in every detail to the UK version. Well except for the title, the cover and the first page of the story. Other than that? Identical. Like two peas in a pod. Only not quite so vegetably.

The best bit though, is that if you click here or here you see that Amazon are offering a special bonus deal! You can buy BLOODSHOT and BROKEN SKIN together for the bargain price of £20.00! That way you can decide if you like it better in English or American, and give the other one to a trusted friend. Or use it to squash snails.

But please: if you DO decide to buy both, don't then send me bitchy emails complaining that it's the same damned book, OK? Consider yourselves warned.

Now it's a nice sunny day; why don't you all go outside and play for a while?

And all who don't sail in her.

In lieu of a launch this year I'm going to be doing an signing avec occasional nibbles at Waterstones' Union Bridge store in Aberdeen. Not only that, it's going to be a Saturday lunchtime do (5th May, 12:00), so hopefully it's not going to end up being just me and the bookshop staff, milling about looking shifty and embarrassed.

I really did enjoy last year's eventarama at the University, even if it was a tad surreal, but you can't do the same thing every year, can you? It'd get repetitive. So this year we ring the changes. *ding*

The down side is that Agent Phil won't be putting in an appearance, and nor will James, or any of the HC contingent. Which does sadden me, but it's a hell of a long way to come, just to see some bearded freak scrawl his illegible signature over a bunch of books. Worse yet: there'll be no one to take She Who Must Be Shown How Civilised People Eat From Time To Time and I for our annual slap-up post-event nosh!

Instead, we'll be huddling at home, sharing a tin of Red Stripe and a tepid Pot Noodle.

Oh the shame. The shame!!!

But you can make it up to me by turning up here on the 5th of May bearing gifts of Gold Frankincense and Myrrh. Though if you're strapped for time, just the gold will be fine. I'm not fussy ;}#

UPDATE:
Someone has pointed out that I was a twit and posted the wrong date. The signing of doom is on the 5th of May, not the 15th. That would be just daft, having a Saturday signing on the 15th. It's a Tuesday.

So the 5th! 5th of May! May the 5th! etc.

Shot in the dark

The rumour is that I'm up for a Derringer this year for a short story in Busted Flush Press's anthology of geezer noir: Damn Near Dead. Which is nice. And yes, I know I don't stand a bleedin' chance, but a boy can dream, can't he?

Bill 'Edgars Ahoy' Crider's excellent story CRANK (also in Damn Near Dead) is up for a Derringer too, but luckily for me it's in a different category. Then again, given that all the other stories in my category are probably serious works with violence and stuff, and mine is a nice little cosy tale of a little old lady, her West Highland Terrier (called Wee Doug), and her tartan shopping trolley, chances are I'm screwed anyway ;}#

But it's very cool to be shortlisted.

I'm in two minds what to do about it. Do I blush and mumble about how I'm not worthy, and it's an honour to be nominated, or do I big it up and campaign like a greasy self-promoting cock-weasel? Or do I tread some sort of middle ground, like a ninja with digestive discomfort and feminine itching?

A bugger it, let's go for rampant cock-weaselry: rise up my minions of the beard! Rise up and get thee hence to the Short Mystery Fiction Society, join-up and vote my pretties! Vote and be fruitful! Vote early and vote often! And if anyone catches you at it, pretend it was all a mistake and you were just trying to order a jumbo bucket of hotwings for home delivery. With extra hot sauce and a side of corn. That'll fool them. Bwahahahaha!

Mind you, knowing my luck you'll all go out and vote for someone else. It's so difficult to get good minions these days ;}#

But back in the real world: good luck to everyone on the list, especially Bill. And big ups to Mr Swierczynski and Mr Thompson for putting us in the anthology in the first place, and then submitting the hell out of it.

Me? I'm going to bask in the reflective glow till someone tells me I haven't won.

To the trees!

Evil? Moi?

I am an evil Scotsman

I only have Tammy to blame for this. She has Gail / Dogma to blame for it. Who blames whoever created it and put it up on YouTube in the first place. And so goes the circle of shame.

I should point out that this is NOT WORK SAFE as it contains scenes of an adult nature and sexual swearwords. It is however very, very funny, in a rude, violent sort of way. It's also a little inaccurate: I have no problems with Germans. Germans are lovely people and buy lots of crime novels, including mine. So that part of the video is a lie. Everything else however*... ;}#

* Well, maybe not the sheep bit.

Downs and indeed ups

James Twining has posted about the up and downieness of belonging to this crazy business we call writing. He says he's inclined to focus on the bad stuff, rather than the good. As you know, I've been suffering from a bout of glass-half-emptiness myself of late, but as Mr Twining (no relation to the people that make the tea -- well he might be, I don't know. Looks more like a coffee person to me.) says we have to focus on the good stuff every now and then, otherwise it's all just one big bleak hole of poop, into which people throw more poop, until there's nothing left but poop. Though obviously I'm paraphrasing on the poop part.

So in the interests of counting one's blessings before they hatch into rabid dinosaurs and chew one's toes off, I'm pleased to announce a nice review for DOOD KALM in the Dutch paper de Volksrant that Uniboek (my Dutch publishers) sent over to cheer me up, after my research, notebook, French train-related disaster.
"Rough and raw, language that could cut you, but also humour in all shades of black available."Which is nice. And:"Stuart MacBride's thrillers ... most of all they present a merciless image of mankind under pressure or in danger, as we flay about, trust and betray, and most of the time try to save ourselves and sometimes. others."Which makes me sound all intellectual. Hahaha, fooled them! Fooled them all!!! *ahem*

It's especially nice to get a great big, positive review like this, because we were worried that DOOD KALM might be a bit too satirical for the Dutch marketplace. Apparently in Holland they like their crime fiction in one of three shades: dark, darker, and darkest. Or 'more darkerer' if you're going to be grammatically picky about it.

Certainly the two short stories I sold over there last year (thanks to some nifty footwork by Sander at Unieboek on my behalf) were bleaktastic. Certainly some of the nastiest things I've written so far. Or at least they were until I started in on Book Number The Fouth, which has turned into a sort of portrait in black. With optional big bleak black bits.

Try saying that after two bottles of fizzy wine and a packet of Ferrero Roche.

Speaking of which, today is the anniversary of the first time She Who Must Be The Luckiest Girl In The World and I shared our first kiss. Or at least the first one that wasn't scripted, on stage, and performed for an audience of jealous septuagenarian thespians.

Oh, and I'm also getting some free bookshelves! See: there's a bright side to everything.