Democracy gone mad

That's right the polls have now opened on the final round of the Theakston's Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. It is your democratic right, nay dutyto rush out and vote*.

In the interests of party-political-correctness I should mention that a number of other candidates are up for election:

• Allan Guthrie (Two-Way Split Party)
• Christopher Brookmyre (All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye Party)
• Graham Hurley (Blood and Honey Party)
• Stephen Booth (The Dead Place Party)
• Michael Jecks (The Death Ship of Dartmouth Party)

Now as your parliamentary candidate for this award I obviously would never suggest that any of the above are DEVIANTS AND PERVERTS -- or that they don't want to kiss anyone's babies, are in favour of swearwords being shaved into the heads of old ladies, and compulsory verrucas for everyone over the age of three -- but I think the evidence speaks for itself. Or it will do as soon as I've fabricated it.

As for me? Well, I don't mind telling you how gosh-darned special and modest I am. See? Here's a picture of me and Kofi Annan**. He wanted to take up nude bungee jumping, but I was all like, "Dude! You should totally be a force for something or other in the world today. Like, uniting the nations and stuff." And then he broke wind and we all laughed. Hahaha. Even though it was a really eggy one.

But that's the kind of international statesman I am. If I was inclined to idle speculation (which I am) I'd say that none of the other candidates have ever giggled at the sulphurous emissions of the United Nations' Secretary-General.

Now I know you're all jumping at the bit to rush out and commit all manners of electoral fraud on my behalf, but I want this to be a good clean election, based on the issues. And that's the story I'm sticking to if you get arrested.

In the meantime, here's a badge for you to cut out and wear with pride as you run roughshod over everyone in your path to deliver victory!

To the barricades!

* FOR ME. Not that I'm biased, but let's face it I'm by far the prettiest candidate this year.
** Which is totally real and not faked in PhotoShop at all! I was just feeling a bit monochrome that day...

Day off, damn it!

Well, that's what I keep telling myself anyway. Not a day off like yesterday -- which was more of a weaselling out of editing work than anything else -- but a proper, full to the gunwales lounging around in my jammies and throwing things at the pigeons. Dirty little buggers that they are. Or at least that's the plan.

And a very good plan it is too.

Except that I can feel the manuscript for Book Number The Fourth staring at me, wondering when it's going to get a good seeing to with a red pen (oo-er, missus). I can't remember if I had this big an aversion to editing BROKEN SKIN or not. Probably. There's something wonderful about editing: it's a chance to fix all the crap I wrote the first time round. But it also means opening up the book -- this thing that I've slaved over, ten or eleven hours a day, seven days a week, for four and a half months -- and discovering that I hate nearly every single sentence...

OK, so maybe I'm being a bit too critical, but seriously: it's as if someone's wiped their bum on 624 sheets of A4 paper. Which doesn't exactly encourage one to get cracking on it. Not without a breathing mask and some thick rubber gloves. And maybe washing the whole thing in bleach first.

I wonder how the thing would fare in the dishwasher?

In other news, there's an interview with me up on the music website, HeavenOrLasVagas, at the moment. Here you can read all about my rabid dislike of all things reggae, and love of musical stoats. And stuff.

Right, suppose I've got some work to avoid.

To the washing machine!

Burnout

In which our bearded protagonist is a lazy old sod.

Today I are been mostly wandering about the house, listening to the cat complaining about the weather (as if it's my sodding fault it hasn't stopped raining for three weeks), eating leftovers and trying to find something worth watching on the television. Hahahahah! When the hell was there last something worth watching on the telly?

Take last night for example: I remember a time when weekend television was... Actually, it's always been pretty dire, but in the good old days -- when you had to power your TV with shovels full of coal and everyone was a funny grey-green colour -- at least there was usually something worth watching Monday to Friday. Well, maybe not 'usually'. Sometimes. Not often, but, you know: occasionally. Last night we decided to pull up a sofa and plonk ourselves down in front of 28 Days Later. Which I had reasonably high hopes of.

Now you see: that's where I went wrong, got my hopes up, didn't I? For all it's attempts at gritty realism I found it to be a very, very silly film. As depictions of a post-apocalyptic Britain go, it's about as realistic as Michael Jackson's nose. Only not as scary. I suppose it could have been a lot worse, but it could have been a lot better as well.

"But," I hear you say, with your mouths full of soggy gingersnaps, "why are you sodding about with the telly? Shouldn't you be off editing something?"

Yes, yes I should. But I'm not.

I should be: editing my way through Book Number The Fourth (which is back to being untitled again, after a brief period of nameitude), my ninja red pen flashing like a shining blade, leaving word-style carnage behind it.

I'd rather be: editing the novella, not just because I finished it after Book Number The Fourth and is therefore fresher in my squidgy brain, but because it's a lot shorter and could be done and dusted with much quickness, leaving me free to get into BNTF with reckless abandon and the aforementioned ninja pen feeling that I've actually achieved something.

I want to be: on holiday somewhere. Somewhere sunny, or rainy, or cloudy... I actually don't care, just as long as it's a holiday and I get to sit on my backside and maybe do some proper sleeping for a change instead. I am sodding knackered.

I actually am: frittering the day away, feeling guilty about not editing, but not really wanting to actually do anything. Preferring instead to ponder on the need for new legislation to make people register their sporrans.

Maybe I'll go have a bath and a snooze instead.

Not as tall as I once was

Once upon a time, when I was eighteen and could go out drinking all night and still resemble a member of the human race the next morning, I was six foot tall. I know this because a man with a medical degree did measure me with a measury thing and say so. Or at least I think he had a medical degree. For all I know it was one of those placemats you get in restaurants where kiddies can colour in pictures of Christ knows what while the grownups consume as much high-alcohol lager as possible, I didn't actually check.

More fool me, I suppose. Especially considering the liberties this so called 'Doctor' took with my private areas. "Turn and cough," indeed. Pervert. Come to think of it, I've never checked the medical credentials of anyone who's made free with my manly areas. Not even the guy claiming to be a dentist who makes all those excited noises while he fiddles with my teeth. Hmm...

Anyway, the point of this ramble is that I was once six foot, but now I'm only five eleven and a half. That's a whole half inch I've lost. From the look of things it's hiding in my waistline. Rotten squatting half-inchy bastard.

Another example of this decrease in stature is the news that I am no longer longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award. Now I am on the list of short people instead. And I'm sure I'm much taller than Allan Guthrie...

The full list of people now a lot shorter than they originally believed is:

• Two-Way Split by Allan Guthrie
• All Fun and Games Until Somebody Loses an Eye by Christopher Brookmyre
• Blood and Honey by Graham Hurley
• The Dead Place by Stephen Booth
• The Death Ship of Dartmouth by Michael Jecks
• And Cold Granite by some bearded bloke.

The aforementioned Mr Guthrie has stated on his blog that the voting for the shortlist opens on the 29th of June, but he might just be saying that so his nefarious army of ballot-stuffers can get a head start on MY nefarious army of ballot-stuffers.

Rest assured I shall launch an election campaign of dirty tricks, slander, mud-slinging and corruption just as soon as I find out what the score is. Don't be surprised to find me on your doorstep, smiling like an escaped lunatic and asking if you want any babies kissing.

Oh yes -- it's going to be brutal. After all, there's beer at stake...

Home again, home again, jiggity-jig...

There are some really good things about going on tour:

1. You get to meet people who read books. This may sound daft, but when you spend all your days sat on your arse in front of a computer screen, it's nice to actually interact with people you haven't made up.
2. You get to have dinner and drinkies with other people what do write stuff for a living. Only are proper successful writers and stuff.
3. You get to be all wanky and say things like, "When I was on tour in Kirkintilloch..."
4. You get to hear about the tattoos some strange people have on their sinful, trans-gender trouser parts, and how they're afraid of spoons and licked library books.
5. You get the chance to actually read books for a change, instead of just writing the damn things!

Of course, the downside to all this is that the opportunity to read those books only exists because you're stuck in a sodding train for twenty eight hours every day. Either that or hanging around on railway station platforms watching the rain piss down.

The trouble with trying to read on public transport is: OTHER PEOPLE! Most of whom are actually OK, and keep pretty much to themselves. It's the other ones who roast my toasties, like the family of delightful little bastards who boarded the train two stops after Newcastle with their brace of screaming children.

Now before you go getting all 'don't be so Victorian' on me, I'm not saying that children should be seen and not heard, OK? I'm saying they shouldn't be seen either. If you're travelling with something that looks like a homunculus made of bogies and sounds like a foghorn with its goolies trapped in a cutlery drawer, would it really hurt you to put it in some sort of soundproof crate for the duration of the journey? Or they could put on special noisy carriages, where all the screaming, shouting, yelling and hollering could be done far away from everyone else.

I should also point out, that the train from Newcastle was nearly empty, and I was sitting in the 'quiet' carriage. I put 'quiet' in ironic quotes -- did you notice that? Before shouty, screamy family it didn't need them. Surely if you've got two small, very bored, very noisy kids you should be sitting in the 'noisy fuckers' carriage, not the quiet one. Unless, that is, you're looking for a nice calm atmosphere so you can really appreciate the deafening din your bastard offspring from hell make.

And even better, the sons-and-daughters-of-bitches decided given the whole -- mostly empty -- carriage to choose from, that they'd sit right behind me, where Deafening Daughter Daisy (3) could play with the back of my sodding seat while she was impersonating a yodelling badger on steroids.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgh!

Worse yet: I was reading BURIED by some bloke called Billingham. And may I just take this opportunity to call him a complete and utter bastard. You know, sometimes I get lulled into a false sense of security and think that when I'm having a pint with people like Mark I'm hanging with my peers. Only I'm not. BURIED just goes to show that Mr Billingham is in a completely different league. The rotten sod.

Now I'm going to have to go through the edit on Book Number The Fourth trying desperately hard to pull my socks up. And even then I doubt it's going to come close.

I held off buying BURIED because I wanted a signed copy from Mr B before I started in on it. If you haven't read it yet: what's your excuse?

But half full of what?*

I have often been accused of having a 'glass is half empty' mentality. This, I tell myself, is a good defence mechanism -- pessimists are rarely disappointed, where as optimists frequently need a punch in the throat.

But on this occasion I'm going to force a smile and say that the glass is half full... Though half full of what is open to debate.

You see, as Mr James kindly pointed out, I now have three opportunities for ego-crushing defeat. Not content with having no chance in hell of winning a Derringer (Daphne McAndrews and the Smack-head Junkies), or a snowball's chance at Satan's birthday barbecue of hoopling off with the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year (Cold Granite) I'm now in the position to not win something else! Hurrah!

Yes, your bearded and slightly smelly protagonist has been shortlisted for the Dagger in the Library, which according to the bumph on the CWA website is not for a single book, but for a 'body of work'. Eh? Looking at the other people on that shortlist I think I can safely say that their bodies are much more... well, not 'big', because that sounds like I'm calling them all fatties, but they've got many more books in print than I do. All of which are much better than my ones.

I'm currently consoling myself with the thought that nominations are a good thing, and not just an opportunity to get your hopes up and then kick you in the testicles. Then stand about laughing as you vomit all over your nice dress shoes. *ahem*

Personally I think the only way I'm going to walk off with any sort of award is by beating up the real winner in the toilets after the ceremony and then running like hell. Possibly shouting, "FIRE!" just to cause some confusion.

But don't let that stop you from stuffing the ballot box in every Waterstones, or CLICKING HERE every day and pretending to be someone's elderly relative who really loves COLD GRANITE.

Well, a boy can dream, can't he?
* For those of you playing along at home, the glass contains: water; mud; some nettles; bits of dead hedge; three poisoned slugs; and a couple of ex-bees courtesy of Grendel.

Birthday Girl

Yes, it is a day for mucho celebrations and congratulations too. Celebrations are because it's Grendel T Kittenfish's birthday! Yay -- she's three today. All together now: "Happy Birthday..." what do you mean you don't want to sing Happy Birthday to my cat? What the hell's wrong with you?

Anyway, tonight Casa MacBride will ring with the sound of two happy and slightly daft parents celebrating the birthday of their daughter, who just happens to be a cat. We're hopeful that the tuna and prawn birthday cake will go down well, and not come back again as sticky booby-traps of cat sick all over the floor. There are many horrible things in this life, and stepping in cold cat vomit with your bare feet is right up there with the best of them.

The congratulations are due for those naughty monkeys on the CWA Dagger shortlists. Three of those naughty monkeys are Michael Marshal (who's up for a Steel Dagger), Kevin Wignall (up for a Short Story one), and my good friend Mr James Tiberius Oswald who's in the running for a Debut Dagger! Hurrah! I shall be crossing all my appendages for the three gentlemen and wishing an uncomfortable bowel condition (of the non-fatal variety) on all who oppose them.

And now, some gratuitous exclamation marks: !!!!!!!

Some updates and an small whinge

Hey ho, my salty sea dogs. She Who Must Be Occasionally Taken Out In Public And Warned Not To Bite Anyone and I went along to see Pirates of the Caribbean part the third on Saturday. Not bad. Certainly a great improvement on the second instalment, and hell of a dark for a Disney film. Then, just to make sure we got our fill of that there big city entertainment our good friends Maurine and Dave took us out for a curry, then along to see Derren Brown at the Music Hall. And very good he was too -- we've never seen a live magician before* and it was all clever, impressive stuff.

And emboldened by this getting-out-of-the-house-athon I'm off to a couple of other places soon too!

For example, tomorrow (which will be Wednesday, unless I'm very much mistaken... which happened last week: I lost a whole day. I've searched and searched, but I still can't find it. The only thing I can figure is that it's fallen down the back of the couch and been eaten by the Missing Sock Monster.) I'm going to be in Warwick, for an evening of fun, frivolity and fruit-flavoured jellies with one Mr Mark Billingham and a Mr Peter James as well.

It's 7.00pm at Warwick Library (Barrack St, Warwick, CV34 4TH) and tickets cost a paltry £3.50. £3.50? For three crime writers? A BARGAIN! Mr Billingham's worth £2.45 on his own! And you can own one of these fine tickets by popping into Warwick Books, or giving them a call on 01926 499 939.

And as if that wasn't enough, I'm also going out on tour again. No, not the USA, this time it's much more exotic than that!

Tuesday 12th of June:
In the William Patrick Library, Kirkintilloch, at 8.00pm I'll be going elbow to elbow with the ever lovely Alex Barclay and the almost as lovely Michael Marshall.

Wednesday 13th of June:
I'll be at the Crosby Civic Hall in Waterloo, (Crosby Road North, Waterloo, L22 0LQ) at 7.00pm, trying no to get on the wrong side of Val McDermid and her bionic knees by pinning all the blame on Michael Marshall (again).

Thursday 14th of June:
It'll be the turn of the Laing Art Gallery (New Bridge Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8AG.) from 6:00 - 8:00pm. Where you can see Val, Mike and I going head to head in a jam donut eating contest. Or failing that reading from our books, talking about stuff, and answering questions such as: what's the capital of Venezuela?

I'm looking forward to it. It's nice to be on the bill with five authors whose work I really enjoy reading. Plus there should be opportunities aplenty for going out for something to eat and buckets of lovely wine.

And speaking of whine:

I fell across an article from the Shetland Times newspaper, which is a cross between a review of my readers' group event on the Tuesday and the big public event on the Wednesday, with a little bit of interview thrown in. And I was delighted to see I'd been grossly misquoted.

I know there's always a risk you run when you talk to journalists, that what ends up in print bears little relationship to what you've actually said, but it always comes as an unpleasant surprise to find this kind of bollocks:

"I don't believe any decent writer has any need of writing workshops or courses and certainly not any of the vast array of self help teach yourself to write books that are on the market nowadays. "
Well, there it is in quotes, so I MUST have said it. Only I didn't. This is what we in the trade call, 'a lie'. What I actually said was that I haven't ever been to a writing workshop, or read any of the self-help writing manuals**.

But thanks to the Shetland Times's reporter (freelance), I now come off like an arrogant toss-pot. Lovely. Thank's Laura -- I appreciate it. And the really fun part is that during the interview and afterwards, she was telling her partner that she was probably going to be in one of my later books as a Hard-faced bitch reporter. Which should have given me some sort of hint where this was going.

For the record: I only put people in my books if I like them.

Here endeth the whinge.

* Though obviously we've seen a few dead ones.
** Other than Stephen King's ON WRITING, which I quoted from at the time.