Halfhead

Out and about.

2011-11-09T12:40:00.003Z

You know, something that really disappointed me about Canada was the complete lack of anyone saying, "Oot and aboot."* Nor did anyone have big flappy heads and tiny beady eyes. Apparently -- and you may want to hold on to your underpants here -- South Park has been lying to us.

Luckily we have a way to make up for this crushing oot-and-aboot-related disappointment by transferring ourselves from Canadian Canada to Aberdonian Aberdeen! Where, if you know where to hang out and don't mind getting your wellies dirty, you'll find loads of people who'll say it for you in a thick Doric accent. "Aye, we're ga'n oot an' aboot the fields i' day."

Only it won't be the fields we'll be oot-and-abooting! No, we'll be oot-and-abooting in Aberdeen. On the 25th of November, I, and some of the finest minds British Journalism has to offer accompanied by a forensics genius and a certain quantity of Isle of Jura Whisky (that quantity being 'quite a lot' if I've got anything to do with it) are going to do a wee tour of some Aberdeen's best places to kill people and/or dump the bodies.

And if you -- gentle sexy reader -- fancy joining us, you can! Yes, those lovely people at Isle of Jura are having a competition where one lucky person can clamber on board the Crime-Fiction-Mystery-Mobile** for an afternoon of Aberdeen, fictional murder scenes, and whisky tastings! Mmm, whisky...

What do you have to do, to win this fine prize not available in the shops? Well, according to the website:

"To win a coveted place on the tour, all you need to do is email us at info@isleofjura.com with your synopsis for a crime story based on the Isle of Jura. You’ll need to be a registered Diurach as well, so please remember to include your Diurach number as proof. (You’ll find it on your Diurach certificate, which can be found, by clicking on ‘Become a Diurach’). Your entry should be no more than 100 words long."

There are, of course, terms and conditions (something about signing over the soul of your firstborn and agreeing to have my likeness tattooed somewhere about your person***) and you can find them all here. Prize includes the tour, a whisky tasting, dinner, a night in a hotel, breakfast , and maybe a couple of books as well. Oh, it's like Christmas came a month early, only without the family arguments and falling asleep in front of the telly.****

Oot and aboot!

* I also couldn't find anyone who could say, "Soldering aluminium tubes to put herbs such as oregano in." But that's a story for another time.
** Which is a fancy way of saying 'minibus'.
*** Or I might have just imagined that bit. But you could still do it if you liked. I mean, who wouldn't want to have a wee Stuart discreetly tattooed on their hidden areas?
**** Unless you really want to.

Blatant Self Promotion

2011-05-17T10:09:00.005+01:00

Well, as if the recent Scottish Parliament, local council, and AV referendum didn't supply us with enough electiony goodness, voting for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year has just kicked off.

It's a good list this year (as always), very strong... But it's nice to be back in the running again - I'm already practicing my 'Of course I don't mind losing, it's an honour just to be nominated' grimace as someone else staggers off with the hand-crafted barrel-O-fun. Assuming, of course, that I manage to wriggle through to the shortlist, which is far from definite.

You can vote to get your favourite book from the longlist to the shortlist by going to the Theakstons website and working your clicky mouse-type magic. Non-shortlisted books will be made to stand in the corner and think about what they've done. And no, you don't have to vote for mine (though, obviously, I wouldn't complain if you did).

In other news* I'm doing a live chat show thing on Thursday evening hosted by Hardeep Singh Kohli at the Lemon Tree. Which should be ... I have no idea, actually. I know it involves curry, so I'm going to take a chance and not eat beforehand. And if things get too grumbly I'm planning to club one of the other guests to death and eat them.

That'll teach them to invite me on things.

* Taking a very lose interpretation of the word 'news'.

LIKE PARKY... ONLY WITH MORE DEAD MICE

2011-03-28T11:15:00.004+01:00

A HalfHead guest post featuring Russel D McLean.

Warning
The following blog post is all Russel’s own work, as such the management accepts no responsibility for any rambling nonsense of a different flavour to the usual rambling nonsense. Nor does it accept any responsibility for him spelling words like ‘favourite’ the American way. Honestly, just because he’s signing book deals in the States like some sort of short and hairy Charlie Sheen there’s no need to throw standards out of the window, is there?

And interviewing yourself is the first sign of madness, you know. Well, that and lining your underpants with tinfoil, but we won’t go into that now.

So, without further ado, ladies, gentlemen, and small woodland animals, heeeeere’s Russel:

Dear Mr Russel D McLean

The estate of MacBeard accepts your proposal to come and talk on Halfhead for the final day of your online tour to promote the US release of your second novel THE LOST SISTER (and to big up the UK edition while you're at it). The owner of the blog wishes to meet at [location redacted] to discuss life, work and beard-growing tips. Please arrive at [time redacted] precisely or risk a fate worse than a fate worse than death.

Sincerely
[Lackey's name redacted]
On behalf of,
MacBeard Inc
(a subsidiary of Beardy Crime Writists International)

Okay, so I'm here. In this field in the middle of nowhere, and there’s a plane dusting crops where there ain't no crops. Hmmm, that's a bit suspicious. I wish I wasn't wearing my Cary Grant suit.

Eeeek! It's coming right at me! Quick, into the corn fields! Hide! Wait for the plane to hit that oncoming oil tanker... And boom! Okay, okay. What is this? Some kind of set up? Better be careful...

Hang on ... who's this coming through the fields? Is it ... could it be international jetsetter and beardy writist Stuart MacBeard? No ... no wait, it's a cat.

A cat wiping the remains of a mouse from her jaws.

Lucky I can speak cat, I suppose. Oh, hang on. It’s Grendel. MacBeard's familiar and mouse-killer extraordinaire. She's telling me that MacBeard can’t make it himself due to terribly important business* so she is authorized to conduct the proposed interview.

Okay, Grendel, take it away:

GRENDEL THE SCOURGE OF MICE: Welcome to Aberdeen, Russel. How was the trip?

RUSSEL D MCLEAN: Aside from the incident with the plane there, its been uneventful. You know I never usually travel this far North.

GTSM: Yes, you’re from Dundee. Daddy tells me its next a place called Fife that smells of linoleum.

RDM: It is next to Fife. I was born in Fife. I do not smell of linoleum.

GTSM: No, I'm getting a hint of marmalade, jute and ... ink?

RDM: That'll be twelve years in Dundee. Those are the three things its most famous for. That and being the last port of call for Captain Scott's ship, The Discovery. In fact, Dundee's known as the City of Discovery. Not just because of that, but because we're a hub for medical research, too.

GTSM: What are the cats like in Dundee?

RDM: You could quite easily rule them, Grendel. Although there is one cat who lives under my bed**. She might pose a challenge to your authority.

GTSM: She hasn't seen my moves. So is Dundee a hotbed of crime? Is that why you're writing about it?

RDM: No more a hotbed than anywhere else. Some bad stuff has happened here, but it happens everywhere. Back when I was trying to work out where to set my novels, I'd discounted Glasgow and Edinburgh as being too obvious. And then Stuart sewed up Aberdeen and I thought, maybe there's a market for books set in places off the beaten track. I'd been in Dundee for a few years, then, and thought it was worth a shot to set something there.

GTSM: You're a writist, like Daddy. What possessed you to even think of doing such a thing?

RDM: It's indoor work with no heavy lifting. And I was foolish enough to do a philosophy degree at university which left me with very few job choices.***

GTSM: You've written two books. Do either of them feature cats?

RDM: Sadly, neither of them do. The first one does feature an apparent suicide and scenes of violence involving shotguns. And the second has a heavily bearded psychopath and a missing girl. Oh, and a very large axe.

GTSM: But no cats?

RDM: Sorry, no. I'll endeavor to fit a cat into the next one.

GTSM: Daddy says you don't write about the police. I thought all crime novels had to have policemen.

RDM: The police make an appearance. But I write about a private detective. There are two reasons for this. 1) is that I grew up reading American novels, and I loved the ones with private eyes. No one in Scotland seemed to be writing about them so I thought I'd give it a try. And 2) My line of reasoning was that I would have to do less research than I'd have to do writing about the police. That line of reasoning was wrong, and I'm very grateful to a couple of real life eyes who took time out of their busy schedules to talk to me about the business. I do have some policemen in the books, of course. But I wanted to write about places they couldn't go, professionally speaking, so my character had to be a private investigator.

GTSM: I think a cat would make a good private investigator. We're good at slipping in places unnoticed... Speaking of slipping in places unnoticed, I see that you’ve been blogging on other people's sites for two weeks...

RDM: Yes, two weeks of uninterrupted gibberish from a beardy Scotsman...

GTSM: Reminds me of home...

RDM: ...and today is my final post. Which feels like I should be celebrating or something.

GTSM: Here, have a tasty mouse corpse. So what have you learned from your tour?

RDM: That even on the internet, scheduling conflicts can cause chaos. That crime readers are jolly nice when someone invades their favorite blogs. And that while you're physically touring, it's possible to recycle jokes, but it's very tough to do so on a blog tour. That top ten lists are impossible to create without some other agenda in their creation (such as books that changed the you looked at writing). Also, I've learned that my accent is much easier to understand in print.

GTSM: Which is tastier? Dead mouse or dead bird?

RDM: It’s all down to seasoning.

GTSM: I prefer my corpses au-naturel, frankly. Any final words for the readers of Halfhead?

RDM: Diverticulitis.

GTSM: Thank you very much. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve seen a bird that’s just asking to be batted about with my Claws of Death!

With thanks to Stuart for agreeing to host the final day of my blog tour. And to Grendel for stepping in at the last minute to conduct the interview.

*I assume he's off saving the world in some fashion. Or having cake. Its probably the cake.
**This is true. A neighbourhood cat has recently taken to waiting for me to come home and then slipping through my door when I open it and hiding under my bed.
***I kid, of course. I kid.

The holy see of socks

2011-02-24T11:02:00.002Z

As I've mentioned previously, I own a sock or two. I've been collecting them for a while now and some are positively vintage. Believe it or not, I've got socks lurking in the darkness of my bedside cabinet that go back to about 3BSWM*. True.

Like a good vintage automobile, there's no point in just keeping antique socks in a garage and admiring them now and then, washing them lovingly and polishing them with a chunk of chamois leather - no, you've got to take them out for a spin. Let them see the inside of your shoes once in a while.

You can tell a good vintage sock in my house by its colour. Nearly all my socks are black. Darker than a politician's soul, only less likely to commit expenses fraud and piss away all our money. You can rarely accuse socks of rampant cock-weaselry. But as they mature, the socks go from that rich lustrous darkness to a sort of deep dove grey. Then the fabric starts to thin, usually around the heel, it's male-pattern-baldness for hosiery.

Then they take that penultimate step and become holey.

It's strange to think that one's intimate footwear products undergo a religious conversion, but clearly it happens. When I buy them they're black and secular, but sooner or later they all seem to have that Road to Damascus moment. One minute they're fine, the next the muted sounds of tambourines and 'Kum ba yah...' comes from the bedside cabinet, muffled by the layer of pants in the drawer above.

I can only assume that they're trying to convert the socky brethren to join them in the service of whatever God socks worship**.

Of course, once they've completed their spiritual awakening, they're ready to move on to the next world, to take that last and final step. When I pull on a sock and I see that it's made that transition from atheist to religious loony, we both know that this is the last outing for Mr Sock (and they're all called Mr Sock). Once more around the block, my old friend; next stop a lavish state funeral with full honours***.

But for some reason, thinking about my old faithful sock minions makes me want to do another episode of Skeleton Bob.

Skeleton Bob, and his friend Stinky Ted
(a little boy who had come back from the dead)...

Now I just need to find lots of things that rhyme with 'BRAAAAAINNNNNNSSSSS!'

* Before She Who Must, which makes some of them nearly 20 years old. That's kinda scary, isn't it?
** Which, given that I'm the one who buys the bloody things, should be me. Surely? Am I not a beneficent deity? Do I not wash and hang them out to dry upon the line in mine bountiful sunshine? Do I not pare them up with whichever sock sort of looks a bit like they do and join them in holy matrimony?
*** Which involves a solemn procession through the house to the kitchen, out the back door, and chucking them in the bin. Saying a few words - usually "Bye, bye, Mr Sock." - and clunking the lid shut. Well, they're only socks.

An Musical Interlude

2011-02-03T16:42:00.001Z

There are times when being a writeist is very cool, and this is one of them. When I was up in Shetland before Christmas I was talking to Donald Anderson of Shetland Arts about the new book, and the website HarperCollins were going to put together for the TV talent show that features in it: Britain's Next Big Star.

And after a few pints of Guinness I managed to persuade him to write a song and perform it for the website. A packet of crisps, and he agreed to dedicate it to Alison and Jenny McGregeor too! Bwahahahahaha. Best cheese-and-onion I ever spent. So when we did the final even of my writer-in-residency, Donald got up and performed the song, Gwilym Gibbons filmed it, I sodded about with some filters so it would fit the BNBS website and Bob's one of your parents' siblings.

And now, after a long time dormant, I can proudly present: Donald Anderson and One More Twist Of The Knife.

What's even more impressive is that the song's actually based on the workshops I was giving while I was in Shetland, and works in a lot of the themes and exercises. How cool is that?

Mr Anderson, our hats are off to you!

The year, she is wheezy

2010-12-31T11:18:00.003Z

Yes, it's the end of another year. Another 365 lumbering steps towards the box that awaits us all... Well, unless you're planning on being buried in some sort of larger-than-life-sized papier mache model of a badger, or getting turned into pies, or something like that.

I wonder if a cannibal wake would catch on over here? I mean, the Wari' have been doing it for generations. Mind you, you'd have to do a bit of presentation on the body parts if it's going to be a success in the UK. At the very least you'd have to wrap the various bits in pastry so they look like sausage rolls. Mind you, then you'd never really know what bit you were eating ... much like a real sausage roll then.

Anyway, yes. This has taken a rather macabre turn, hasn't it? I have been eating a lot of cheese at bedtime lately, so maybe that explains it..

Another thing I've been doing a lot of over the festive period is sleeping. Lots and lots of sleeping. Which I suppose isn't that surprising, given how busy 2010 has been. Too many all-nighters pulled trying to meet deadlines, lots of travelling, and the fact that I spend most of my time indoors with Grendel. let's face it, she's a cat -- sleeping is what cats are second best at, closely tied with covering everything in the house in a thick patina of discarded fluff. Honestly, the floor in my study looks like a deep-pile grey mohair jumper. Every time I hoover it's like playing Indiana Jones and the Lost Carpet of Blueness (which would probably still be a much better film than all that Crystal Skull nonsense).

So, the only two options I can come up with are that, A: I've got some sort of sleeping sickness - which I kinda doubt as the only place I've been recently is Shetland, and in addition to its complete lack of anything even remotely resembling a jungle, it's also renowned for not having any tsetse flies. Or, B: being around Grendel so much is turning me into a cat. Which I suppose wouldn't be all that bad -- Grendel has a great life, she's pampered, fed, watered, looked after, has no real responsibilities, and never has to hoover the study in a vain attempt to locate the actual carpet.

Of course the downside would be having to wash oneself continuously using only your own tongue. I've got a bit of a bad back, so that's out. Maybe I'd be allowed to use someone else's tongue on medical grounds? (And don't think Keira Knightley and Ann Widdecombe haven't been fighting over the privilege) But then I'd have to spend the day covered in someone else's slavers, and that's doesn't appeal quite as much as you'd think.

I've completely forgotten where I was going with this.

Anyway, in the absence of yet another 'top ten of 2010' listy post, enjoy your Hogmanay* and if you're in Aberdeen on the 12th of January, maybe I'll see you at the Lemon Tree, where we'll be launching SHATTER THE BONES.

Right, now I'm off for a snooze...

* Which my spelling checker wants to change to 'Mahogany' for some God-forsaken reason. Not quite the same thing, I'm thinking, but I have been known to be wrong in the past. Perhaps people do burst into annual revelry around their sideboards, stripping off till all their wearing are party hats and a cheesy grin? Who am I to judge?

Cabin Fever!

2010-12-02T23:39:00.002Z

Of course, 'Cabin Fever' shouldn't be confused with 'Jungle Fever', especially when the cabin in question is in Shetland. Not known for it's jungles, is Shetland. In fact, it's positively renowned for being a jungle-free zone. When I think of Shetland one of the first things that comes to mind is the complete absence of anything even vaguely resembling a jungle.

The other big difference between Cabin and Jungle fever is the complete lack of monkeys, elephants, lions, and Tarzan. Though he may have been suffering from Cabin Fever in the Jungle, given his habit of running around in his pants, yodelling all over the place. Which is just not sanitary.

When I was a kid, I could never figure out why Tarzan yodelled the whole time. I mean, he wasn't even Swiss, was he? No, he was Lord Greystoke, a member of the British aristocracy, which is important from a societal perspective -- a commoner running about the jungle in their pants, yodelling at things, would be a sign of mental illness and depravity. A member of the upper classes doing it is eccentric and delightfully whimsical.

It still doesn't explain the yodelling though. I mean, OK, so Tarzan was raised by apes, devoid of human contact in his formative years, so we can expect his communication skills to need a bit of work, but yodelling? Who taught him to do that? As far as I can remember, there's never been a David Attenborough documentary about the Great Yodelling Apes of the African Congo. And even if there were, where did they learn it from? I suppose there must have been Swedish missionaries in the region a couple of decades before, who took pity on the godless apes and decided to teach them how to communicate over large distances in mountainous territory. A vital skill, should the aforementioned apes ever find themselves stranded in the Alps, because the plane they've chartered to take them to Madrid has gone seriously off course after the pilot passed out from trying to snort dry-roasted peanuts.

And yes, that's not very likely, but clearly Swedish missionaries don't like to leave anything to chance. That's why they've got those groovy knives the size of mobile phones from the 1980s.

But I digress...

So, Cabin Fever. CABIN FEVER. I think I may be coming down with a bout of it, having spent nearly four weeks in a one room studio overhanging the harbour in a small town on the west coast of Shetland -- the last week and a bit under a blanket of snow even thicker than people who think you can communicate with monkeys by yodelling at them. Seriously, next time you're at the zoo, or your plane crashes halfway up the Amazon, have a bash at yodelling at the wildlife: see how far it gets you.

Shetlandaramadammadingdong

2010-11-19T15:47:00.002Z

The more astute among you will have noticed that the little boxy bit at the side of the page now contains a bunch of Shetland-related events. Well, Shetland-related in the sense that they actually take place on Shetland. Which is always the best place to do Shetland-related things, as it requires a lot less suspension of disbelief. It'd be pretty damn difficult to do a convincing amount of Shetland-related stuff in Barbados, for example. Unless you found a way to make the local seagulls fly sideways, followed by small children, dogs, and assorted sheep.

Yeah, I know it's a terrible cliché, but "Holy Weather Forecasts, Batman!" they know how to do wind up here. And I should know, because here is where I am*. In a fit of ... something -- I'm not quite sure what, possibly dyspepsia or inebriation -- I decided a while ago that what I'd really like to do is hole up somewhere wild and remote, in the middle of winter, to start work on the new book. And so Shetland beckoned**! Better yet: those hip dude groovmeisters at Shetland Arts managed to parley it into a writer in residence gig, so I've got four weeks up here to explore, annoy new people, get cracking on the new book, and do some writing workshops and exclusive events.

And when I say, 'exclusive', I mean it, baby. Really exclusive. Really, really exclusive. So far we've done events on Yell and Whalsey, and we've still to break single figures. Nothing quite like it for keeping ones usually tumescent ego in check. But it's quality that counts, not quantity. That's what I keep telling myself.

It still beats my record for attendance at a STUART MACBRIDE event, by a factor of ... well, infinity. Because my record low for attendance was bugger all. That's right: not one person. Not even a smelly Labrador with a dodgy eye and flatulence. No-bloody-body. Ah, that was a night to be proud of. And it was in Aberdeen too, just to rub sharny grit into the wound. In the end, the bookshops staff and I mumbled something about the weather, shook hands (avoiding eye contact), and sloped off into the night, vowing never to speak about it again.

Writing superstar, that's me ;}#

* Although, technically, I'm always 'here'. It's everywhere else that changes, depending on where my here is. Right now, in case you're wondering, you're 'there', and you're going to be stuck 'there' for most of your days. Unless we happen to both be in the same place at the same time, in which case you'll finally have made it to 'here'. Mind you, it would be difficult to both be in the same place at different times. So ignore that bit.
** Wouldn't it be cool if it baconed? That would have altogether more savoury connotations.

Standing on the brink...

2010-11-13T20:46:00.004Z

OK, so not so much 'standing' as 'sitting', but 'sitting on the brink' doesn't quite have the same ring to it, does it?

Yes, I know it's been a while since I last updated this thing. So long that all the code is infested with spiders and fuzzy with dust, and the spam-posting-onanists have been merry decorating the electronic walls with their stinky urine and half-wit graffiti. Though to be fair, it must be hard to post advert-filled comments one handed. Bruising their knuckles on the underside of their desks... But I digress.

Book Number The Seventh (or Book Number The Eighth if you're counting Halfhead) is away at the printers, ready for a publication date in early January, and that can only mean one thing: it's time to write Book Number The Eighth (or Book Number The Ninth if you're counting Halfhead). And that is the brink upon which I sit. Dangling my legs over the edge, and thinking, 'Fuck... that's a long way down.'

That's right: tomorrow I'm going to start writing Book Number The Eighth (or Ninth) for real. No more sitting about, staring into space, pondering characters and stuff, now the actual work begins. And I don't mind saying that it's got me a little bit worried, because the next book is a standalone.

'What?' I hear you think, because you haven't been taking your medication and your thinks are seeping out from your delicious, moist brain. 'You're worried because it's a standalone? I thought you were dead keen to write one of those!'

And you're right -- though that's no excuse for not taking your meds -- I've been hankering after writing this particular story for about three years now. So why the worry? Because the last time I strayed off the beaten track and wrote a book about someone other than Logan, set somewhere other than Aberdeen, it got ... mixed reviews.

Yes, I'm talking about Halfhead. I did a gig in Linlithgow a couple of weeks ago, and while the event itself went quite well, the topic of Halfhead didn't. I couldn't find a single person there who'd read it and liked it. Poor book! What did it ever do to deserve such rancour? Such vitriol? Such ... stuff? Other than be not set in Aberdeen, not feature Logan, and be about things set fifty years in the future?

Which I suppose are plenty enough reasons for some people. That said, I get a couple of emails a week from people desperate for me to write a sequel, so not everyone is a member of the Halfhead Depreciation Society. Some people are desperate for me to write a sequel...

But that's why I'm worrying about the book on the other side of the brink. Not because people want me to write a sequel to Halfhead -- that would be silly -- because this is going to be a book that doesn't star Logan. That isn't set in Aberdeen (though a couple of scenes might be). That isn't... OK, it's not set in the future, but still: two out of three.

But it's a book I want to write. It's a book I'd like to read. So fuck it. I'm going to step over the brink.

Avast, me hearties

2010-05-15T07:06:00.004+01:00

No, it's not September the 19th yet, but as the good folks at HarperCollins have just launched the good ship Dark Blood on an unsuspecting population, I fell a bit of 'Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, Jim Lad, I can't takes me greyhound backs to Glasgow...'* was in order.

So far (fingers crossed) it seems to be going down OK. Which is nice. Mind you, I haven't checked that meeting place for the dispossessed and mentally squinky, Amazon, for hate reviews yet. So it's entirely possible that I'm missing out on some great vitriol. When Blind Eye came out I found the crappiest review I could of Flesh House, and read that out whenever I did an event. This time I've abandoned reading any sort of thing connected to the actual book, in favour of a wee short story instead. Gosh, doesn't that sound exciting?**

And, in the interests of stuff, things, and trying to ensure that there are actually some bums on the seats next week, may I direct your naughty eyes to the following paragraphs...

This Monday (17th) I'm going to be in Ullapool, doing another Murder, Mysteries, and Microscopes event with the Macaulay Institute. Well, three of them to be honest - two designed to traumatise the local school kids and one, in the evening, that'll be of a more grown up nature. If you want to come along, we're going to be in the MacPhail Centre at 18:30. Fun, frivolity, and forensics - what more could you ask for? Other than, maybe, crisps. There won't be any, but you can always ask.

Next up, I'm off down to Blayden Library for an intimate evening of knob gags and not exposing myself*** on the 18th at 19:30. Be warned though - there will be singing.

And speaking of singing, I'm nipping down the road to the Lit and Phil in Newcastle on the 19th for a lunchtime event with that besequined, Sondheim-singing thesp and crime writer: Martyn Waites. Kickoff is at 12:30, and I understand the event's being sponsored by a local brewery... So I'm hoping that means BEER! Or, slightly more dangerous, BEAR! But I'm hoping it's the former, no one wants to be chased down the streets of Newcastle by a large carnivorous mammal. Well, maybe perverts, but normal people will definitely prefer the beer. Though excessive consumption may well result in waking up next to one.

Then that very evening, to cement my status as an international globe-trotting beardy thing, I'll be at the Waterstone's Piccadilly branch in London at 18:30. Last year I was pretty much expecting to be performing to an empty room - those wily Londoners being allegedly immune to the lure of a mid-list Scottish write-ist with a hairy chin and winsome smile. Fuckers. But in the end we got a nice wee crowd**** and it was groovier than Ann Widdecombe in a bacon bikini*****. Saucy minx that she is. This year... Well, I wouldn't complain if you wanted to come along. And bring a friend. Or a cardboard cut out of the aforementioned Ms Widdecombe in her meaty bathing suit. Otherwise I fear it'll just be me in there. Assuming I get on the right train from Newcastle. Then I'll have to get Agent Phil to don a fake beard and do the gig in a faux-Scottish accent, with associated cries of 'Hoots, mon!'

And then, as a final hurrah to the wee tour, I'll be wheeching back up the country to Mussellburgh Library for an Ann-Widdecombe-free event****** involving singing, rude words, and the definition of the prison term 'Bomb Patrol'. 20th May at 19:30.

After that, it's just me and the cat, trying to get the new book written before the DEADLINE OF DOOM!!!

* Seriously, that's how people who adopt rescue greyhounds talk (at least, they around here). I think they give them special courses at the vet.
** Probably not, but it does give me the excuse to shout the word 'FUCK!' in a high-pitched lisp, and you don't get to do that very often.
*** Long story.
**** And one chap who we'll be polite and merely describe as 'A bit of a twat.'
***** Smoked back bacon, because streaky would just cross the line from 'kinky' into just plain perverse.
****** By which I mean that there won't be any Ann Widdecombes, not that I'm handing out free Ann Widdecombes, or that if she turns up in a bacon bikini that she's getting in for free. She'll have to pay her £4.00 like anyone else. Honestly, who does she think she is?

It's not just me, is it?

2010-04-09T08:49:00.002+01:00

As a result of officially becoming an old fart last year - crossing the River Styx from the land of milk, honey, and boobies, into the cold wasteland of my forties* - we switched allegiance from Radio 2 to Radio 4. For years and years the alarm would go off at 06:45, just in time to hear Sarah Kennedy rambling her way, barely coherently, through the papers. And that was nice. We liked trying to figure out what the hell she was talking about, it leant a vague warm fuzziness to the start of the day.

Then Terry Wogan retired, and Radio 2 reorganised its schedule. Suddenly, instead of getting the paper-rambly-WTF every morning, it was *shudder* show tunes. We stuck it out for a week, then packed our bags, upped sticks and relocated to Radio 4. I was envisioning every day starting out with proper grown-up discussions on proper grown up topics, rather than listening to some mouth-breather murdering an obscure song from South Pacific. Oh, the naivety of ... well, not youth, obviously - I mean, that's why we got into this position in the first place.

And yes, there's proper grown-up stuff on Radio 4 in the mornings, but at the moment a huge chunk of it revolves around (cue dramatic music) THE COMING ELECTION!!!**

Now you can call me a sexy old beardy cynic if you like, but I'm really beginning to miss the day-starting rambling fuzziness. Because what we have now, every sodding morning, is me lying in bed ranting at whatever sleazy thieving scumbag politician they're interviewing / quoting / or talking about. And there's still five and a bit more weeks of this to go!

You know what? I can save us all a huge chunk of time by summing up every single political discussion we're going to be subjected to from our elected representatives in one easy chunk, then we can all head off and have a nice cup of tea and a lie down in a darkened room. Contemplating what all those spiders we allegedly swallow every year taste like***.

Ahem.

Thieving Bunch Of Self-Serving Dick-Weasels (TBoSSDW) A: "Blah, blah, blah."
TBoSSDW B: "That's just blatantly untrue! Our policy is the only one that will work."
TBoSSDW A: "No it won't. Ours is the only policy."
TBoSSDW B: "Isn't."
TBoSSDW A: "Is."
TBoSSDW B: "No it isn't."
TBoSSDW C: "Under the last Conservative / Labour / Liberal**** government... Blah, blah, blah."
TBoSSDW B: "That's preposterous! Our policy is the only one that will work."
TBoSSDW C: "No it won't. Ours is the only policy."
TBoSSDW B: "Isn't."
TBoSSDW C: "Is."
TBoSSDW A: "No it isn't."

Repeat until everyone grabs a burning pitchfork and marches on Westminster. Which is about as likely to happen as television executives waking up tomorrow morning and realising that reality TV is crap-flavoured crap with extra crap on the side, and that maybe they should try making some decent bloody programmes for a change. Back in 1976 the song might have been 'Anarchy in the UK*****' now it's 'Apathy in the UK' ... or it would be if we could be arsed to sing it. Which we can't.

And we've got five and a half weeks of this to go as the collective mass of TBoSSDW posture, pontificate, call each other liars, and make promises we all know they're never going to keep.

Oh the joy...

* Where there are also boobies, but they need a bit of a run up.
** With three exclamation marks, because that makes it sound more exciting, right?
*** I think they taste kinda dusty, but with a squishy centre, a bit like bluebottles, but less crunchy.
**** Though to be fair, that would be a bit of a stretch. After all, the Liberals haven't formed a government all on their own since 1915, so giving them a kicking for screwing up the country is a bit like kicking a three-legged puppy.
***** And for future reference, "I am an Antichrist" does not rhyme with "I am an anarchist" and pronouncing it "anar-kyste" does not make you sound big and clever, or 'subversive and dangerous'. It makes you sound like a dick.

Martin Scorsese, eat my shorts (socks, or pants)

2010-04-02T11:13:00.005+01:00

"What's this?" I hear you ponder in the darkest recesses of your delicious brain*,

Well, obviously I wouldn't want him eating the underwear I'm wearing: that would just be a bit rude, wouldn't it? Bad enough someone coming to visit the house and helping themselves to the biscuits... But, yes, anyway, the reason I make faux-mockery noises in Mr Scorsese's direction is that I too am now an international film making guru man!

Oh yes, you might laugh now, but while you sit there with Buckfast dribbling out of your nose, I've made my YouTube directorial debut:

And I have to admit that I'm pretty damn chuffed with it. Amazing what you can do with a few mates, a wee story in the Evening Express, and a budget the size of a hamster's tadger. But there we have it - the official book trailer for DARK BLOOD.

A lot of people helped a hell of a lot -- he said, going into full on Oscars mode -- and I have to draw special attention to Alex (assistant director, cameraman, and half-naked dude), John (who let us film heaps of things in his house, and helped me build the caravan), Lorna (who gives the best blood spatters in the business), She Who Must Be Mentioned (who even made the sandwiches**), Xavier (Sledgehammers R' Us), Ubby and Dave (typecast as thugs), Danny (bitten on the arse by a bloody big dog, in the line of duty), Julie (gun-wielding maniac), Christopher (who got beaten up and helped with the music) and Everyone who came along on the Saturday to Victoria park to shout and wave placards. But most importantly to Lee, who played the part of Richard Knox - remember, he's not a pervert, he's a bookseller***.

Next we'll have to work on a 'making of', stuck together from all the out-takes and bits we couldn't get into the trailer. A director's commentary's going to be a bit hard to do though. At eighty seconds long, there'd be just enough time to go, "Hello, my name is ... and this is the special extras for ... Oh, it's finished."

And now, I suppose, I should get my finger out and some actual writing for a change.

Ho hum...

* Yes, it's time to get the Bacofoil out and patch that fetching hat of yours again, the thinks are leaking out. Incidentally, I use the word 'delicious' because for some reason I've become a bit obsessed with the term, 'Zombie Apocalypse' of late. The really weird thing is that I only watched Zombieland on Wednesday night and I've been using it to describe pretty much everything for weeks and weeks. She Who Must Sit In The Passenger Seat And Listen To Her Husband Ranting On And On About The Cognitive Abilities (And Questionable Sexual Relationships With Farmyard Animals) Of All The Other Motorists is becoming a bit fed up of me pointing to late night pedestrians and shouting, "Look, ZOMBIES!!!" All I can say is that everyone should have a hobby. Incidentally, I really enjoyed Zombieland - very funny and well put together, if partially spoiled by the Bill Murray bit, which was a bit too predictable and self-indulgent for my tastes... Anyway, what was I talking about?

** Well, I say 'made', but I mean 'went to Markies for', but she did it without complaint, and even bought everyone chocolate biscuits. What more could you ask for?

*** And I know in some cases the terms can be synonymous, but he's a nice guy in real life when he's not being screamed at by angry mobs. In fact, he's the assistant manager at Waterstone's Langstane branch in Aberdeen!

Knox, Knox, Knox, OUT! OUT! OUT!

2010-03-15T14:05:00.003Z

OK, so I have a wee confession to make: I was kinda bricking it a bit on Saturday. Thinking there was no way I'd get more than about a dozen people to film the angry crowd scene (and let's face it, it's not that easy to make twelve people look like an angry mob. Though they'd be perfect for a disgruntled bus queue) I got in touch with a nice man I know at the Evening Express. "Can you mention it?" says I.
"Well ... the paper's pretty much designed for Friday, but I'll see what I can do." says he.

And that was that.

Then on the Friday I opened my copy of the EE to find Scott had written a half page piece, asking for protesters. EEK! Cue sudden image of three hundred people turning up and everything spiralling out of control.

PANIC!

Then the crash. Maybe no bugger will turn up at all? Maybe it'll be just me, Alex (assistant director and cameraman), She Who Must Be Cast As A TV Reporter, Lee (bravely playing the part of DARK BLOOD'S arch pervert, Richard Knox), Googling Brother (playing the part of 'Reporter in silly hat' and DSI Danby), and a couple of mates. Oh God, it'll all be a disaster...

Or maybe it'll be far too many people?

Not enough?

Too Many?

ARRRRRRRRRGH!

And I had no idea which it would be until we walked into Victoria Park. In the end we got seventy five of the best damn angry rioters I could have possibly hoped for. And really, really well behaved ones as well. When I shouted, "ACTION!" in my fake Steven Spielberg voice they went ape and shouted and screamed and waved their placards. And when I yelled "CUT!" they went all quiet and waited to be told, "ACTION!" again. Brilliant. I'd booked the park for two hours, figguring it'd take at least that to get anything done, and in the end we were done in thirty-five minutes.

How cool is that?

So I want to say a big thank you to everyone who turned up on Saturday - you couldn't have been more perfect if you tried.

Next up, editing!

Fancy trying something new?

2010-03-11T19:22:00.003Z

All those life coaches with their plastic hair and plastic tans and plastic teeth are always telling us we need to try new things in this life to avoid becoming boring slabs of deep-fried potato*, slowly oozing into our collective couches. Well, if you fancy expanding your cultural horizons I have a proposition for you: come to Aberdeen.

Specifically, come to Aberdeen's Victoria Park this Saturday the 13th of March for 14:00. And wear a woolly hat.

Why?

Bleedin' 'eck, isn't it enough that I've asked you nicely?

Didn't think so.

This year, for the first time, those naughty monkeys at HarperCollins have agreed to let me film a wee trailer for the new book. Yes, DARK BLOOD is going to get the full Hollywood experience. Or as much of Hollywood as I and some friends can do with a stepladder and a roll of duct tape. So on Saturday between 14:00 and 16:00 we'll be filming an angry crowd. You know the sort of thing: shouting, waving their fists, holding placards, protesting their little booties off.

And if you want to come and be in the trailer, that would be very, very cool. It's going to be kinda difficult to film an angry crowd scene if only three people and a whippet turn up, so the more the merrier.

There's no cash involved (though I might get some crisps in), but how often in this life do you get the chance to protest and shout nasty things about someone who doesn't exist? And obviously we'll all be up for an Oscar next year. *ahem*

If you fancy it - we're in Victoria Park (just off Westburn Road), meeting at the fountain in the middle of it on Saturday, ready to start rocking and rolling at 14:00 and releasing our inner thespians! Darling! Luvie! Etc!

Dress as if it's the dead of winter: gloves, thick coats, hats, and scarves, and prepare to be made IMMORTAL!

* Not that I've got anything against deep-fried potato. Come on, chips? What could be better than chip? Except chips and fizzy wine. And dancing girls.

Competitionistical

2010-03-02T10:55:00.003Z

I've been meaning to post about this for a while, and the new book is being a little sticky this morning, so now seems like as good a time as any. Well, maybe not as good a time as, say, sitting on the grass in the height of summer with a bottle of fizzy wine and a groaning picnic basket*, waited on hand and foot** by a bevy of dusky maidens - that would be a pretty damn good time.

Anyway, yeah, so: competitions.

First up comes courtesy of those lovely people at Alibi, in conjunction with other lovely people at HarperCollins, The TV Times, and the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. As you probably know Alibi's the only channel completely dedicated to crime drama, which is kinda pretty cool in our household, and this year they're launching their inaugural 'search for a new crime writer'.

"Oh yeah?" I hear you mumble, through a mouthful of PotNoodle, "And what do we have to do to win this competition thing you're pimping, like a big hairy pimp?"
Easy, you cynical monkey, you're getting gravy all down your chin and it's not a good look. What you have to do is flex your creative writing muscles and come up with a short story (2,000 to 5,000 words) starting with the following sentence:

In my experience, those who beg for mercy seldom deserve it.

Piece of cake, right? Or a bag of crisps if you're not down with the whole cake thing.

The competition was rolled out on the 25th of Jan (yeah, I'm late getting around to telling you about it, but I've been deadline's bitch for months now) to an instant flurry of submissions. Some of which, I'm guessing, were lying about in people's top drawers, gathering dust, just waiting for an excuse to be foisted upon the world. And a couple of the entrants didn't even pause to read the submission guidelines and ... oh, I don't know ... take the basic sodding precaution of rewriting the first line to say, 'In my experience, those who beg for mercy seldom deserve it.'

Seriously, 10 out of 10 for enthusiasm, and 0 out of 10 for getting rejected straight away for NOT EVEN BOTHERING TO PRETEND YOU'D WRITTEN IT FOR THE COMPETITION!

Twits.

Anyway, you've got till the 16th of May to enter, and you probably want to know what kind of goodies you'll be walking off with, like the kids on Crackerjack (though without the obligatory pencil and cabbage) one lucky write-ist will be leaving with their arms weighed down with:

A pair of tickets to the festival (22nd - 25th July and I'm chairing it so it's going to be pretty squinky this year), two nights' B&B, and your travel paid for***.
One place at the Creative Thursday Workshop Master-Classes on the 22nd July.
A Sony eReader
Lunch with the head of Alibi, and a HarperCollins rep (I've not been invited, so I'm sulking)
100 crime books, including a complete, signed back catalogue of my stuff.
And your story published online in an e-edition by HarperCollins.

Not too shabby, eh? And two runners up get:

A pair of festival tickets each, and a slot at the Creative Thursday Workshops too.

All you have to do is write your short story and submit it at the Alibi website. Where they also have a video of me looking remarkably like a fat hairy potato.

More competition news tomorrow, and perhaps a photo of a dead mouse too!****

* Groaning as in 'full to bursting with nice things to eat' not groaning as in 'suffering from intestinal discomfort'. That wouldn't be such a good time.
** Why do people want their feet waited on? Are they pedophiles? Freaks.
*** Within reason, I assume. I mean, they're not going to fly you first class from New Zealand, are they? Be sensible.
**** I know you've been missing them.

Corrupting the nation's children...

2010-02-24T13:11:00.005Z

Well, it's official, I am now a force for evil in the world. Much like Marmite, tie-dye tank-tops, my next door neighbour, and Belgium. It started out innocently enough, teasing nuns, breaking wind in elevators and not owning up to it (ala Sam Neill), running with scissors... But then I couldn't stop. I needed bigger, and better, and more evil thrills! And so in the end, I settled on a plan to corrupt the youth of our once proud* nation.

Seems straightforward enough, doesn't it? I mean, it's not like the little sods aren't already naturally inclined towards evil. And so I set out to write a novella, a novella that parents would be conned into picking up by the cheery cover and wholesome-sounding blurb.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

At least that's the story if you believe what the Sunday Times says:

Grisly reading for 8-year-olds
WATERSTONE’S, Britain’s biggest bookseller, has recommended a novel full of expletives, sex and violence for children as young as eight...

Expletives, sex, and violence - I'm so proud!

Now, as one would expect of a quality news organ, the Sunday Times isn't the kind of newspaper to make unsubstantiated claims. When it says that SAWBONES is 'full of expletives', it means it:

Over the next 113 pages [SAWBONES] uses the F-word and its variants 89 times. The plot includes three male castrations, references to oral sex, limbs being amputated and one attack on a girl by a vicious dog.

How cool is that? Some poor sod actually had to work their way through the book -- presumably with a cup of tea, a couple of chocolate biscuits, and a notepad -- counting up the number of times the characters use the word 'fuck'**. Can you imagine doing that as your job? What do you tell your mum when she phones up that night to ask if you've been eating regularly, did you have your scarf on because it was cold out today, and what did you get up to at work today?
"Oh, nothing much, Mum, I spent the day counting 'fuck's."
"That's nice, dear. Runs in the family. Your grandad worked for the Ministry of Defense during WWII counting 'Bumsen', 'Geschlecht', and 'Verkehr's in German High-Command communiques. He could spot a foreign 'fuck' faster than anyone in his whole department. Got a commendation from the Queen for it. Anyway, are you coming over on Sunday for your tea?"

Or something.

Sadly whoever the poor sod assigned the counting job succumbed to what I think we're going to have to call 'Fuck-blindness' as there's really only the one castration in the book. But what's a little castration or two between friends? I was more surprised that they didn't mention someone getting shot in the face. And I can't remember putting any oral sex in the thing, but then I can be a bit forgetful that way.

The worst bit of the whole article, is the bit where they neglect to say:

Though full of filth and violence, SAWBONES is a damn fine read and you should buy at least three copies or be made a pariah in your local community!

A dreadful oversight, I shall have to make a complaint to the PCC.

But as they say: no publicity is bad publicity - according to Agent Phil SAWBONES enjoyed a sudden spike on Amazon as people rushed out to get their hands on 89 fucks***, three castrations, a blow-job, dog bite, and a bit of gratuitous dismemberment. Or maybe they wanted to check how outraged they should be when talking about it later? Either way's cool with me to be honest.

The Sunday Times actually interviewed me for the piece, but they've not used any of it for the online version. I hear they used a wee bit in the print version, but not the bit that surprised the journalist I spoke to:

Journalist: 'Do you think your books are suitable for children?'
Peddler of Filth and Violence: 'I think that's really up to the parents, don't you?'
[stunned silence]

Honestly, if you buy a book for your eight-year-old kid with a bloody handprint on the cover, a blurb that talks about dismembered blondes, serial killers, and mob enforcers, you kinda deserve to be dragged out into the snow where angry weasels will be sewn into your trousers, before you're hit with poopy-sticks**** and called naughty names. Take some responsibility for what goes between your children's ears!

Other than that, I kinda like my new bad-boy / evil genius image. I may have to build an underground volcano lair thing. You can buy killer sharks on eBay, right?

* And now mostly embarrassed.
** Oh, I feel so naughty!
*** That's 65% of your recommended daily allowance.
**** Which you can make at home by taking a regular stick and sticking it in poo. Hence the name.

Raw nipple soup*

2010-02-03T17:30:00.002Z

To be honest, I'd kinda forgotten what the outside world looked like. Having recently passed the Mother-In-Law of all deadlines, I was finally able to venture out of the house this week: hurrah! Or it would have been 'hurrah', if not for the bloody snow. I am fed up of snow and would now like it to bugger off wherever snow goes when it dies.

In previous years I would've taken some time to build a vaguely obscene snowman (or woman) in the back garden, but this year I've been confined to the house with the aforementioned deadlineitis - staring out through the window like a grubby, measlly child, only without all the unflattering spots. Which kinda takes the fun out of snow. If you can't make rude snowmen out of it, write your name in it, or throw it at people, what good is it?

But no longer - now I can go out and do other stuff. Stuff that doesn't involve making up lies about people who don't exist. Well, you know, other than research and planning Book Number The Seventh**. So I tried getting out of the house yesterday, and my nipples still hate me for it.

Bad nipples. Naughty.

It was probably my own fault for not taping over them*** when I was getting ready in the morning. For the sake of couple of Elastoplast I could have maintained nipple-integrity, instead of having what looks like a pair of chewed strawberry Jellytots glued to my manly chest.

Day didn't exactly get off to a roaring start either. She Who Must Give Her Husband A Lift, Because His Car Won't Go In The Snow And Has Spent The Last Month And A Bit Sulking In The Garage****, dropped me off at the train station in Dyce yesterday morning on her way to work. Normal rush hour in Aberdeen is a vast, burning pain in the behind, but ever since the snow came it's been made even worse by the huge collection of ninnies who have about as much business being behind the wheel of a motor vehicle as a perverted octopus has being in your underwear drawer. Gettin' yer pants all slimy and smellin' of fish...

Hmm, maybe not the best of analogies.

Anyway, we got stuck behind a lovely person in a silver Ford Fiesta thing, doing thirty miles an hour all the way into town. Seriously, Princess (and I'm not using 'Princess' here to imply that it was a woman driving, because it wasn't, it's just a general term of crappy-driving abuse) if you're that scared to be on the road ... DON'T BLOODY DRIVE!!! Park up somewhere nice and live off the hairy jelly babies that have accumulated in the passenger footwell of your car until the snow melts. Dear God, we live in the North East of Scotland and every time there's anything even vaguely approaching snow or rain, these people drive like they've got a boot full of nitroglycerine and excitable puppies! Dicks...

Anyway, digressing again.

So, the reason I was going into town yesterday was to meet up with a mate for a pint and a vaguely-nasty hamburger in the evening, and to get some publicity shots done for a wee tour I might be doing in Germany later in the year.

"Oh, hark at him," I hear you mumble, through a mouthful of biscuits, "Mr Glamorous international photography boy!"

Cynical, sarcastic bastards that you are.

I know it sounds all glam, and the guy taking the shots is one of the best in the business (John Borwski who's a bit of a legend in Aberdeen) and a genuinely nice guy to boot. But that doesn't change the fact that it was the two of us sodding about in the sleet, snow, and howling wind all afternoon. By the time we finished, he couldn't feel his fingers, and my nipples were glowing like twin Rudolphs. Dear Jesus and his My Little Pony hot-water-bottle, it was cold.

All very Aberdonian and atmospheric though, and perfectly appropriate for promoting Dark Blood, being set as it is on the January-February cusp. But it's Blind Eye that'll be coming out in Germany this year, which is set in the height of summer. Now, there are some years when the height of summer in Aberdeen is indistinguishable from the depths of winter everywhere else, but in the book I lied like a bastard and made it blisteringly hot. Hahahaha... oh, the irony.

Especially as my nipples now look like two burst blisters.

Try not to think about them too much, OK?

* This post doesn't really have anything to do with 'soup' - I just thought it sounded classier than 'raw nipple' on it's own.
** Not counting Halfhead.
*** Like an episode of the Simpsons.
**** The Car, Not She Who Must

The Crimplemas Entropy Fairy Strikes!

2009-12-22T12:30:00.001Z

Some people think that inanimate objects are inert. They have no soul. No sense of self. No sense of timing or irony. Bollocks. If that’s the case, how come computers always die when you really, really need them? You know, when you’re trying to hack into Dr McEvil’s mainframe to stop him turning all the worlds oceans into chocolate pudding*, or when you’ve got to concoct a personalised birthday card from someone’s photo and stuff that’s been downloaded from RubberFetishGerbil.com, or (and this is slightly closer to home) when you’re in the middle of editing Book Number The Sixth.

But is this really the computer’s fault? OK, so it’s had three different hard drives over the last couple of years, and the battery life is even shorter than your average fun fair goldfish, but other than that it’s been a perfectly good machine. Until yesterday, when it displayed the following suicide note:

A disk read error occurred
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart
So our bearded protagonist presses Control Alt and Delete at the same, with a technical flourish of his manly fingers, and true to its word, the computer does indeed restart. Makes a couple of chugging noises, a whirrrrrrrrrrr, and then displays the same desperate cry for attention.

On its own, this would have been a pain in the arse. Well, let’s be honest, it’d be a vast steaming haemorrhoid, swaddles in sandpaper that’s been dipped in Tabasco. Especially if there were bits of the edit lurking in the deep dark recesses of the aforementioned disk that refuses to be read. But five minutes later the wee stereo I have in the study to play music while I’m hunched over the first draft of the book with a red biro like some sort of demented beardy refugee from Notre Dame Cathedral, decided its life wasn’t worth living either.

I suppose it could have been a murder suicide plot. Maybe the computer and the stereo were having a passionate, clandestine relationship? Maybe the printer found out and got jealous and killed them both. “Stop treating me like I’m some sort of peripheral damn it! How can you love him? He’s not even USB compatible!” That kind of thing.

Or maybe it was the Crimplemas** Entropy Fairy? Normally the Entropy Fairy waits till just after Christmas to break everything, but obviously the little curly-toed tosspot decided she needed a bit of practice to get her eye in before the big day -- when she flits from house to house, making sure that 43.6% of anything kids unwrap on Christmas morning is broken by lunchtime. This is not the same as the Lesser-Spotted Battery Fairy who hides all the AAAs and those big flat DD batteries as soon as Little Timmy opens his Optimus Prime Bingledy Bongledy Noise Making Thingie That Transforms Into A Bath Chair And A Colostomy Bag.

Bloody Entropy Fairy. Next year I'm festooning the study with sticky fly paper (also works on fairies), and when the little sod turns up I'm pulling her wings off.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

* Which probably sounds quite appealing to some people, until you realise that fish don’t do so well in chocolate putting, so what you’d end up with is vast oceans of brown slurry that tastes of rotting fish.
** Crimplemas is like Christmas, but it’s ridged for extra crispiness / her pleasure, depending on which way you’re inclined.

Cobwebs

2009-11-08T11:50:00.002Z

OK, so it's been a while since I posted anything. "Ah," I can hear you thinking - probably because you're not wearing that fetching tinfoil helmet you've normally got on - "You've been all boring and stuff, haven't you?" Well, no. I've been all windswept and interesting in such varied and exiting locals as Shetland, Guildford, London, Aberdeen, Fife, Glasgow, Inverness, and Frankfurt. International Man Of Beardy Write-istry, that's me.

What I've also been is Deadline's bitch. But that has now passed. Yes, that's right my little tinfoil-less friends, Book Number The Sixth (AKA: Dark Blood) is in for editing even as we speak. It has sodded off down to the big smoke to seek it's fortune like Dick Whittington, or Puss in Boots, one of the two. Anyway, it's not hanging around Casa MacBride any longer, making the place look untidy, which is nice. I shall find out if it's a festering sack of rabid weasel droppings, or not, in about a week or so. Till then I'm enjoying not being an International Man Of Beardy Write-istry. Nice though it is to see new and exciting places, if I never have to take my shoes, belt, watch, iPod, and trousers off to get through airport security again I'll be a happy Munchkin.

Seriously, why can't they warm their hands first?

But I digress.

So what am I doing with my new-found down time? Sleeping mostly. Sleeping and shouting at the television. I'm getting quite good at it - any time a politician or a member of the financial services industry comes on the idiot box they can probably hear me ranting in Dundee.

Soon I'll have to give up my sleep-and-shouting-style R&R activities and get on with planning Book Number The Seventh. Then there's the website. A friend of mine hosts it for me, but stopped supporting ColdFusion on the 1st of the month, so the whole thing has gone the way of the Norwegian Blue. Which means I need to either learn to programme in .Net for a change, or stick something slightly more static up. Then there's the Harrogate Crime Festival to organise. And the landing could do with mucho sanding and varnishing.

Or maybe I'll just go on swinging the lead till the lovely Edity Ninja Sarah gets back to me?

Hmm, decisions, decisions... I should probably sleep on it.

There's blood everywhere...

2009-09-02T11:04:00.002+01:00

I suppose it's really about time I said something about Halfhead, you know, what with it being published tomorrow. Well, I say 'published', what I mean is that it's the official publication date, which means the book itself's probably been on sale for about a week or so already. But tomorrow is it's official birthday, so cake and party hats for everyone. You know, the big pointy ones, where the elastic's never big enough to around your chin and ends up either snapping and putting your eye out, or getting wedged under your nose. Making you look a bit like a pig with a silly hat on.

But I digress. Yes, Halfhead. Tomorrow. Stuff.

I'm expecting a bit of a backlash about this book, much like the one I got when Sawbones came out last year: "How dare you write about anywhere other than Aberdeen!!!" "How dare you write about anyone other than Logan!!!" "How dare you be so damn sexy in a built up zone, between the hours of eight and six!!!" You know, the usual.

So let's get all our nuns in the box and make with the info. Halfhead is a thriller, not a book about spaceships and aliens and anal probes. What it does have are explosions, full-frontal nudity, conspiracies, serial killers, and onomatopoeic weapons*.

I even got a lovely blurb from that lovely tri-genre-straddling master of Horror, Sci-Fi, and crime fiction: Michael Marshall (AKA: Michael Marshall Smith, AKA M.M. Smith) "Slick, gruesome and brutally intelligent, this is bare knuckles thriller-writing." Which means I'm going to owe him a hell of a lot of pints next time I see him.

Damn.

It also, believe it or not, has a kind of theme going through it. I won't say what it is, because I tend to think themes are a bit wanky. But it's only a little theme. More frottage than full-on onanism.

I think I'll steer clear of the whole 'theme' thing when I visit Shetland at the end of the week to do my first Halfhead-related event though. Don't want all the islanders avoiding me, now do I?

Oh, and speaking of Shetland, I have some rather unlikely news. BBC Radio Shetland** is handing over the airwaves to Mr Allan Guthrie and myself for nearly a whole hour on Friday evening (18:10 - 19:00). We'll be spinning the platters that matter, the songs for thongs, the tunes that ... droon. Or something.

I plan on calling everyone 'hep cats', that should ensure my swift promotion to a regular slot on Radio 2.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

* Which I have to admit are some of my favourite bits of the book: Whompers and Thrummers being the cream of the onomatopoeic crop. What do they do? Well, Whompers go 'WHOMP! when you pull the trigger, and make stuff explode, and Thrummers go 'THRRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM...' and tear stuff apart into its component molecules. Which would be super useful if you've ever tried to get baked on grease off of a roasting dish. Or a double-glazing salesman off your front step.
** Yeah, they're having to keep it quiet on the BBC website, because they don't want the studio mobbed with screaming women. Probably all wanting us to shut the fuck up and play some Scottish country music instead.

Jet ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... lag...

2009-07-29T19:35:00.003+01:00

Home! Hahahahahahahahhahahahahah! I am finally, at long, long last, back in my own home. My own bed! With my own stuff all about me, and my own cat to cuddle. And my own kitchen. Oh, the joy of eating stuff you've cooked yourself, rather than whatever's come out of some hotel's cockroach-infested kitchen*.

Oh, and my wife. Yes. Nice to be home with She Who Must Not Be Forgotten In Any Blog Post Thing On Pain Of The Stapling Of Delicate Parts. And I wish to formally state that I'm not typing that under any form of coercion, threat, or pointy object. No. It's all voluntary... *ahem*

Yes, so: the rest of the tour of Australia and New Zealand went not too badly. The high spots were probably the events in Brisbane** and Perth, with very close seconds coming in Melbourne at the Crime and Justice Festival. Where I got to say "FUCK!" very loudly in a convent. And it's not every day that you get to do that.

Everything post Perth is a bit of a blur. Other than the lovely woman on the way back from Singapore to Heathrow who decided to watch a comedy film at two in the morning (UK time) and laugh uproariously every fucking ten fucking minutes. And when I say 'uproariously' I mean 'loudly and flat'. Like a bloody witch that Wile E. Coyote's dropped a sodding anvil on. And when I say 'comedy film', I'm only guessing. Given the look of the woman, I wouldn't have been surprised if it was Schindler's List.

Anyway, so... Harrogate. Kinda went past in a blur this year, what with the jet-lag and all. I'm sure that in addition to being vague and wobbly I was probably grumpy too, so apologies to anyone I spoke to. Certainly I don't think I gave of my best at any of the events I was slated to do... Or rather, I gave of my best, but my best was considerably more crap than in previous years.

At one point I tried drinking heavily, and managed three whole pints before lurching off to an early bed. I did slightly better on the Saturday night, after popping an obscene amount of caffeine tablets. But that just led to me talking very quickly for three hours and then staring at the ceiling in my room wondering why the wallpaper wouldn't JUST FUCKING MOVE FOR A CHANGE!

And you know what? I can't remember very much about the festival at all. It's all a whooshy blur. With a speeded up soundtrack and a faint smell of elderberries.

From this, I think we can safely assume that jet-lag + caffeine = bad. Naughty. Not to be repeated.

But it's certainly nice to be home!

* Yup, I had a lovely meal in a VERY expensive hotel that featured a live floor show involving cockroaches. Huge ones. They couldn't sing and dance, but they did their best. All three million of them...
** Where I spectacularly managed to cock up afterwards and not meet up with Sean O'Boyle, composer extraordinaire. I completely spaced and forgot it was Brisbane I was meant to meet him in, which is a vast pain in the arse, because he does some seriously good music. I can wholeheartedly recommend his Concerto for Didgeridoo to you, because it's really rather good. Even though he'll probably never speak to me again.

Timmy’s fallen down the well?

2009-07-21T14:36:00.002+01:00

Tuesday started, as days down under always seem to for me, far too early and with a vague feeling that someone’s stolen the sentient part of my brain and replaced it with some sort of delicious nougaty goo. I tried to get the thinking back with a warm-ish shower in a freezing cold room, followed by a nice cup of tea and setting the fire alarm off. Ah, the joys of toast.

I’d flown down from Sydney the day before, on a wee plane full of coughs and sniffles. Which is always reassuring when you’re heading into the Swine Flu capital of Australia.

It’s kind of weird: visiting someone and being given a room with en suite shower, bath, washing machine, and chunky stained glass sculpture/window; billiard room, cooking facilities, well-stocked fridge, couch, dining area, and an upright piano (with a buggered E above middle C*). I’ve stayed in four star hotels where the facilities didn’t even come close. But best of all was the outsides...

Now you’re going to have to forgive me if I wank lyrical for a moment here:

I wandered out the door, into the bush and the early morning light. The scribble of eucalyptus trees, dark against the pale blue sky. Steam rising from the scrappy underbrush, glowing in the sun’s early touch. The smell of cough mixture tainting the air from fallen eucalyptus leaves. The screech and drum of birds and frogs, hidden in the bush. And then there were kangaroos.

I’d never seen kangaroos before. Not real ones. Yes, I’ve seen kangaroo impersonators in the zoo when I was wee, and on the telly, but this was the my first, genuine, 100%, look for the union label, hopping around in the wild, kangaroo. There were three of them, frozen in the scrub, staring at us: Victorian old ladies, standing prim and proper, clutching invisible handbags to their chests. A look of mild distaste on their long hairy faces, peering through the bush.

When you see them from the waist up it even looks as if they’re wearing vast crinoline dresses -- the kind with a bustle out the back. And they just stood there for two whole minutes, disapproving of me, then they were off, bounding away into the trees. Knees together, dainty little ankles flashing saucily, dirty great big feet thumping on the muddy ground.

I stood there and watched them go, grinning like I’d been dropped on my head once too often. Kanga-fucking-roos, right there, in the wild!**

And best of all, they’re bloody tasty too.

Anyway, mid-morning there was a scramble for the train, made all the more difficult by the stinky rail operators spodging something up, meaning that we had to have a tour of unknown back streets in a clapped-out, replacement bus service. And thence to central Melbourne.

My first glimpse was a tad on the surreal side, as two men dressed as HUGE seagulls buggered about pecking pedestrians, an big elephant jiggling about in the muddle distance, and a not-to-scale snail shuffling about between them all. Funky, in a ‘How much did I have to drink?’ kind of way.

But we pottered about for a bit, went to the gallery, admired the aboriginal art, then went back to playing spot the kangaroo at Adrian’s place***.

Then next day was a trip through the Yarra Valley, Adrian driving while I stared at the scenes of devastation. The terrible bush fires that tore through Victoria have left a swathe of blackened landscapes. Great chunks of countryside with nothing but charcoal trees sticking out of the dark earth. Apparently the farmland grass has come back really quickly, but the native grass and ferns are trailing a long way behind. So all you can see from the car window are charcoal-coated tree trunks, stretching away into the distance.

Many of them are sporting scrubby green patches of leaves, but Adrian tells me there’s not enough rain about for them to survive. It’s a fake revival. A dead tramp bounce. Apparently experts are predicting that up to 85% will die. Here and there we can see the rectangular patches of dirt that used to be people’s homes. The death toll was huge, and almost everyone out here knows someone who died in the blaze.

I found it bloody strange to think that in this day and age, people are dying from something so primordial as forest fires. Not just one or two people: nearly two hundred. It seems like something from another era...

* Just in case you’re wondering, the wooden upright for the hammer was broken, so it didn’t even make a clunk. And completely screwed any attempt I made at playing the bloody Moonlight Sonata. When you’re playing by ear, it’s kinda hard if you can’t hear some of the notes. It knida goes: dum, dum, clunk, dum-dum, clunk...
** No, not copulating kangaroos, that would be rude and wrong. I’m sure they have enough decorum to rent a nice motel room and put on some Barry White. Oh, yeah, you know what big feet mean, don’t you baby... Mmmm...
*** And no, that’s not an euphhemism for something dodgy.

Manly men don’t surf

2009-07-11T10:09:00.002+01:00

Opera House hunting started bright and early at five in the morning when the alarm on my phone went off. Stupid phone. It had forgotten we were now on Australian time, not New Zealand time. So it was two hours earlier than it thought. Oh, how embarrassed the phone was when I pointed out it’s mistake, in short, angry, sweary words...

Opera House hunting started again four hours later, after more bleary swearing, a shower, an overpriced breakfast full of noisy tourist people*, and a lot of fumbling with the hotel’s courtesy map. In the end I found it hiding about three minutes' walk from the concierge’s desk. Ah yes, it thought it could best me, but I showed it! I SHOWED THEM ALL!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAaaa...

*ahem*

Anyway, so, yes: it’s big and white and looks a bit like Sydney Opera House, as featured on TV and things. Only smaller. And slightly less shiny. And with a hell of a lot more tourists** milling about. But I didn’t have time to dawdle. No: because I had to catch a ferry to the other side of the bay and up a bit, for lunch with the inestimable Michael Robotham and his family.

Circular quay isn’t a monkey’s gargle from the opera house, so I slouched over there, doing my best to look nonchalant. Yeah, I’m cool, I fit in. Tourist? No, dude, can’t you tell I’m a traveller? Yeah, I’m taking photos, but that’s, like totally research... No, I don’t want to buy a knock-off Rolex.
So then I goes up to the gal behind the ferry terminal counter, put on my best smile. “I’d like to take the ferry to Manly.”
She looks at me, the way a starving tramp looks at a half-eaten Big Mac. “You don’t need to take no ferry to Manly,” she says, licking her lips. “Baby, you’re already there.”
Mind you, given the huge hairy moustache she has, I get the feeling she got there before me ... and then ate all the pies.

If you’re ever sodding about in Sydney for a while, may I recommend taking the ferry out to Manly? It’s a surprisingly restful trip, given the damn drunken hoons that seem to be dotted all over the place. The worst bunch on the way out were French, so technically: les fichus hoons ivres. Hanging over the side of the boat and drinking beer in that irritating cock-weasely way that seems so chic when you’re fourteen and have more spots than a swimming pool full of dalmatians.

Anyway, I’d met Michael at those ITV3 crime award things last year and he’d foolishly said, ‘If you’re ever in Sydney...’ as you do, never expecting that the ghastly person you’re talking to will actually turn up on your doorstop. But like a bad penny, or smell*** there I was. Hahahahahaha! But being the consumate gentleman that he is, he took me on a wee tour of his home town.

There's something really weird about Manly: it’s full of blokes dressed in wetsuits****, usually stripping off at the side of the road, showing off their shampoo-commercial hair and unfeasible abs. Clearly surfing isn’t a manly pursuit. Even if they’re actually surfing in Manly... I mean, if you’re really a manly man then surely you don’t have time to spend all that time sitting up and washing your hair. You're too busy putting up shelves, mowing the lawn, and working the barbecue. Stuff like that.

Looking at these golden-tonsured poo-heads, Michael told me why he never surfs any more (it involves stitches), and then took me back to his house for a lovely lunch of slow-roasted lamb with assorted vegetable delight. And very nice it was too. For a bloke that's sold 1,300,000 copies of his first crime novel***** he’s remarkably down to earth. If it was me I’d eat nothing but caviar and wipe my bum on pink parakeets.

But maybe that’s just me. Certainly when I conducted a covert search of the Robotham family bathrooms there was no sign of a parakeet dispenser.

After a very tasty lunch Michael took me to a wee beach of his acquaintance so I could go paddling in the Tasman Sea. I’d tried to do this from the New Zealand side, but it was going to be pretty suicidal, so Russell talked me out of it. Sensible chap that he is (if you ignore his millinery choices). It was lovely to stand in the surf on an Australian beach while the sun went down. And not get eaten by sharks, stung by deadly jellyfish, or bitten by venomous spiders out for a day at the beach (and probably sporting eight little inflatable water-wings*****).

After that it was back to the ferry for me, leaving Manly behind, but forever carrying it in my heart. You know, in a manly kind of way. Not a hair-washy, ab-crunching kind of way. My abs don’t need crunched. Well, they probably do, but I’m relying on self-delusion to see me through to the end of this paragraph...

* Because I’m over here on business, I’m a traveller. Not a tourist. And if you see me standing in the street gawping at things, then taking their photograph, it’s research. Yes. You heard: research. Not tourism. No, because obviously I’m way too cool for that.
Shut up.
** But not me, because I’m a ‘traveller’, as we have already established.
*** Like for example, the kind produced by a New Zealand Fantasy writer.
**** Like a big rubber-fetish pervert convention.
***** You heard right: one point three MILLION copies. I'm thinking of erecting a statue in his honour. ****** Spiders not being the best swimmers in the world. That’s why they always envy their relatives the crabs, and never invite them to Christmas dinner. Mind you, no one ever jokes about Paris Hilton having spiders, so I suppose they can't complain too much.

Yeeee-haw...

2009-07-10T12:15:00.001+01:00

A lot of people think the Fourth of July is a purely American holiday – one where they celebrate getting rid of the steeeeenky British Aristocracy and it’s crapulantly corrupt parliament* - but it’s also an important day in the New Zealand calendar. Yes, the Fourth of July is officially ‘Try To Drown A Scotsman Day’.

But they don’t do it in a hands-on fashion. No bag over the head, concrete block round the ankles and into the nearest harbour for the Kiwis – oh no, no, no. Everything in New Zealand has to be environmentally friendly these days, so they use the weather to give Scotsmen a watery grave...

I was fifteen minutes from the slightly manky** hotel I’d ended up in after the event in Hamilton, when the attempt on my life was made. It was bloody stoating it down, bouncing back off the tarmac for optimum wetness. By the time I’d gone half a dozen paces my trousers were sticking to my legs like ... wet trousers. I’d spent the morning in the Auckland museum, looking at the Maori exhibits and wondering why everything seemed to be so incredibly lifeless. More than a little disappointing, to be honest, thought they’d made a much better fist of it with the volcanic exhibition.

Unfortunately there wasn’t time to get dried off, so I had to spend my taxi ride to the airport in a small steamy fug, with squishy shoes and squelchy socks. Never a good look for an international bearded write-ist. Finally managed to get the feet dry by performing vaguely-obscene contortions beneath the hand driers in Auckland airport. The socks were a lost cause, so they were wrung out and stuffed into a plastic bag -- so they wouldn’t leak all over my hand luggage -- but I was stuck with the squishiness of shoes. Aha, thinks Stuart, I know, I shall stuff them with paper towels! That’ll do it.

So it was that I spent an hour and a half on a plane from Auckland to Sydney, wearing no socks and shoes lined with paper. Like a crazy person. All I was missing was the wool-and-tinfoil hat.

Still got through immigration though. They didn’t even want to clean my hiking shoes. Though that might have had something to do with the presence of my bare feet, newly developed eye-twitch, and angry muttering in a French accent. Well, everyone’s got to have a hobby, right?

By the time we landed in Sydney it was dark, so no dramatic view of the opera house from the plane window, just a huge carpet of lights stretching away into the darkness. Jordan*** -- who’s going to be my minder for the eventy part of proceedings here in OZ -- was waiting at the gate, clutching a review copy of Halfhead. Which was pretty damn cool to finally see the thing after all these years in proper book form. Strange to think it’s actually going to hit the shelves in September. I imagine the hate mail will start flooding in a couple of days later from people telling me I have no right to write anything that doesn’t feature Logan McRae and Aberdeen. And can they have their money back. But for now, it’s pretty damn cool.

Tomorrow I go hunting for the opera house. With a pointy stick and a butterfly net. That’ll teach it.

* Insert topical ‘thieving cock-weasels’ reference here.
** ‘Slighty manky’ in the same way that the Atlantic Ocean is ‘slightly moist’.
*** No, not the vacuous plastic tart so beloved of British tabloids and gossip magazines.

Just like the Hulk, only shorter and less green...

2009-07-10T00:32:00.001+01:00

Friday morning dawned about three and a bit hours after we finally got to bed in Christchurch. Bloody dawn. Bloody damn drunken hoons... I had to be up and sensible* for a live telephone interview, pimping Blind Eye to the unsuspecting Kiwi audience, with a bit of extra event-related pimpage thrown in for later in the evening. For this was to be my inaugural event on the Bearded Wonder Down Under tour: Penny’s Bookstore, Hamilton.

Now that Russell and I had survived not only the snowy battle through the mountain passes, but a whole week in the car together, the end was drawing near. Like a motorbike hurtling towards the back end of a lubricated elephant. Or something. All we had to do was hop on the plane back to Auckland, then survive lunch at a service station on the way down the motorway to Hamilton.

Jesus, and I thought the food at the BUFFET OF DOOM was bad...

The event went reasonably OK, I think -- given the tiny amount of sleep involved. Everyone was arranged in a semicircle of chairs just outside the front door of the bookshop, which put them right up next to the escalators in the shopping centre. Meaning that every time I got them all to swear in Polish, their rude words echoed around the whole place. Which was kinda fun.

And then, at the very end of the evening, when the last book had been signed, Russell and I said our goodbyes, shook hands like manly men do, then he walked off to his car. Free at last from the bearded Scottish bloke. It was a bit like that bit at the end of the Incredible Hulk TV series, only without the ‘Doo-doo-deee-dooo’ music playing over the credits.

In a way this past week’s been a bit like a huge sprawling fantasy novel. Two disparate characters from foreign lands thrown together to travel over fantastical landscapes, hunting for food (some of which was truly awful) huddling around camp fires (of the three bar electric variety) talking in outrageous French accents (not so common in fantasy novels, but I’m sure it’ll catch on). One traveller is tall and bearded; the other is short, has hairy feet and a novelty woolly hat. Their trusty steed a Subaru estate thingie with almost enough power to haul the clingfilm off a British Rail sandwich ... almost, but not quite. The only thing we didn’t do was kill things with swords, though Russell’s morning emanations would have been more than a match for even the toughest Uruk-Hai.

I’m certainly going to miss the little fella. Not only is he an excellent tour guide, fixer of iPods, producer of noxious smells, promoter of obscure-yet-finky** music, prone to lapsing into a strange French accent, and wearer of an ever-expanding wooly hat***, he’s a damn fine bloke too.

It’s going to be very odd going on to Australia without him.

‘Doo-doo-dee-dooo, doo-doo-dee-dooo-dooo, dee-dooo...’ etc.

* Well, up at any rate.
** Which is like funky music, only less inclined to attract people wearing flares.
*** It was head-sized when he bought it in Dunedin, but by the time we got back to the North Island it was big enough to sleep six. Like a knitted condom for a sperm whale it was. Which would probably be kinda scratchy, now I come to think about it. Did you ever get a hand-knitted Fair Isle jumper from your granny? We did: they were hell with sleeves. She might as well have knitted the damn things out of stinging nettles and fibreglass insulation. I’m sure these days it would count as a kind of child abuse.
And if a sperm whale did use Russell’s hat as a condom, it’d go even baggier in the water, which would probably make it a pretty inefficient method of contraception. That’s why knitted prophylactics never caught on amongst marine mammals.

Damn Drunken Hoons...

2009-07-08T10:07:00.003+01:00

Thursday morning failed to dawn. We’d been staying a slightly more swanky motel than normal, one with a couch and a microwave and a kettle and stuff. And, as an added bonus, just because Russell and I were so damn manly, they threw in a power cut.

Now that doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Little power cut. OK, so we couldn’t use the microwave, or the kettle, or the shower, or the heating*, or anything else powered by the magical electric pixies, but we still had the couch, right? We could sit on that to our heart's content. And we did. Man, we sat the hell out of that couch.

Apparently what happened** was that a pair of hoons*** ran out on a $500.00 bar bill at half two in the morning, screeching off in their hight-powered sports car for the sort-of-nearby town of Franz Joseph. Looking for somewhere else to get another bucketful of the demon drink. Now this is a pretty long, wiggly waggly road that threads through the mountains, across floodplains and glacial moraines, but hoons are hoons, so off they went. About five minutes from Franz Joseph they careered off the road and into one of the big concrete poles that hold up the power lines. BANG! Wiping out all the power from just south of Franz Joseph to somewhere I can’t remember how to spell way, WAY down the coast.

Then they drove off. Damn drunken hoons.

So the early start Russell and I were meant to get, never materialised. It’s a lot more difficult to pack your bags when it’s pitch dark outside and you’ve got no lights.

After yesterdays glacier-related disappointment -- couldn’t actually get anywhere near the damn thing, remember? -- and the horrors of dinner**** we were planning on doing a shoot to Franz Joseph to see if their big chunk of moving ice was feeling any less shy. Only with all the sodding about, it meant we couldn’t leave Fox until the sun was far enough up the watery sky to let us see our own socks.

In order to make up time, we skipped breakfast in Fox -- probably not a bad idea, I get the nasty feeling that if they’ll happily marinate fish in Fanta, they’ll probably serve rice crispies with Marmite-infused semi-skimmed – holding out till Franz Joseph instead. Where we blundered into the World’s Grumpiest Waitress competition. Semifinals.

Then Russell and I clomped our way through the mist and fog down the valley carved out by the glacier, picking our way over boulders and through the concrete-like silt deposited by the beast as it retreated back up towards the mountains. Battling like manly men across the debris, fighting our way through the weather, surrounded by waterfalls crashing to the valley floor from the hills above, and Japanese tourists pushing wee kids in baby buggies, grinning and taking photos. Which kind of spoiled the whole Sr. Edmund Hillary thing we had going.

But the glacier was well worth the trip. A huge wall of dirty ice, forty-feet high, with a heart of unnaturally glowing blue. Apparently it’s been growing for the last few years, slowly making its way back down the valley under the weight of all that snow.

Slightly more intrepid souls than us were clomping their way up the side of the mountains for a guided tour in the drizzle, but Russell and I didn’t have enough time to be intrepid -- due to those damn hoons and their power-cutting antics – so we had to do with a few photos, a bit of drinking it all in, and then a slog back down to the car park. Next stop Christchurch.

At least that was the plan. By the time we’d driven the four hours to Arthur’s Pass, it was closed with snow. So we turned around and drove another two hours to the next one up ... and that one was closed too. By now the whole place is in darkness, and the snow’s hurling itself out of the sky. The roads are getting increasingly crappy, and Russell decides that as I’m from Scotland I’ll have a lot more experience driving in snow than he has. So for the first time in the whole trip I am entrusted with the car. Woohoo!

Or it would have been, if we could have gone much faster than three miles an hour on the slithery tarmac.

So instead of a couple of hours, straight across the country to Christchurch, we ended up having to go all the way up the west coast, and around the northern tip of the South Island. By the time we finally pulled into Christchurch it was three in the morning, we’d nearly knocked down a couple of seals*****, everyone was asleep, and the lovely roast lamb the lovelier Ange had made was all cold and clingfilmy in the fridge.

All in all, not the most relaxing of ways to finish the last day of our Great South Island Adventure. But if those bloody idiots hadn’t crashed their car into that power line, we would’ve been over Arthur’s Pass long before the snow hit.

Damn drunken hoons.

*New Zealand in the depths of winter, remember?
** And I say ‘apparently’ for legal reasons, this is just what we heard.
*** A great New Zealand term for ‘young tosspots’.
**** Not as bad as the BUFFET OF DOOM, but still pretty horrible: fish fillets in a citrus sauce with boiled tatties should have been reliable enough, but the cirtrus was orange, and the sauce was sweet. So it was a bit like someone pouring Fanta all over a packet of fish fingers. And the tatties were ... let’s be nice and call them al dente.
There seems to have been a bit of theme in New Zealand cuisine where they like to put sweet sauces with meat. I think it’s meant to be all nouvelle and swank, but it’s actually seriously sodding nasty. Stop it! Bad New Zealand chefs, naughty!
***** When the weather’s crappy they like to shuffle out of the water and up onto the road, where it’s a little bit warmer. Doesn’t help that they’re the same bloody colour as the tarmac in the dark.

Glacier Mints and a small resurrection...

2009-07-01T11:46:00.002+01:00

I have come to the unlikely conclusion that Russell Kirkpatrick* is a pocket genius. When I say ‘pocket genius’ I don’t mean that he does new and exciting things in his trouser pockets. That would be unwholesome, especially whilst driving. But there’s certainly a whiff of the clever about the man** -- remember my iPod died the death of a thousand swearwords yesterday? Well Russell managed to bring it back from the dead with a small amount of fiddling with the buttons. Also known as a ‘reset’. I didn’t even know you could do something like that with an iPod Nano, but you can, and it works too.

So I am with tunes again! Hurrah!

This meant I was able to join in with the ‘play-weird-music-in-the-car-athon’ competition as Russell drove us out to the West Coast and up to the Fox Glacier.

Eight o’clock in the morning and Arrowtown was absolutely sodding freezing. A real nipple-stiffener of a day, complete with thick blue shadows and vast plumes of smoky breath. it’s really dry in this part of New Zealand, so the cold’s deceptive. It’s a dry cold so you don’t really notice it to begin with, not until it’s leached all your body heat away, leaving you shivering like a jelly on a spin-drier. Good job I’ve got the special naughty hiking socks I bought yesterday, or I’d probably have lost a dozen toes by now.

The road out to the west was crap, winding away under a thick pall of dense grey cloud that hid most of the mountains from view. What’s the bloody point of coming half way around the world to ‘Ooh!’ and ‘Ahhh!’ at the scenery if you can’t even see the sodding stuff? Grumble, grumble.

The clouds stayed with us for mile after mile, until finally -- and all at once -- they buggered off and everything was blue skies and spectacular vistas again. I got to see my first sub-tropical rain forest too. It’s huge. Mile after mile of untouched virgin forest***, all dusted with frost and deep-frozen at its heart. Next time I’m going to try tropical rain forest, none of this ‘sub’ malarkey. It’d be warmer on the nip-nops if nothing else.

But the point of this six hour driveathon was to get to the Fox Glacier in time to see it in all its icy goodness. And we did. Sort of.

We took a helicopter tour up the glacier, which included scaring the living bejesus out of a mountain goat at 9,000 feet, and then chasing it along the ridge with the rotor blades. Imagine it’s Cary Grant, the Cook Mountain is a corn field, and the helocopter’s a crop duster with a machine gun fitted to it, and you’ve sort of got the picture. The damn goats up here must have Velcro feet, because the one we saw was defying the laws of physics in general, and gravity in particular.

Then we landed on the top of Fox Glacier, had a poke about for ten minutes, then were shepherded back in the helicopter for the trip back to base. About 40 minutes start to finish. And as Russell and I still hadn’t had our fill of all things glacial, we drove up the valley to view the great icy beast from up close...

Or at least we tried to. The closest you can get to the glacier’s snout is now about half a mile, due to two tourists getting themselves squashed with falling chunks of ice. The joys of Health and Safety. So we never got anywhere near the actual Fox Glacier, instead we had to make do with standing on a muddy path behind a rope cordon, swearing curses of doom down upon the Department of Conservation. Really disappointing, given that this was what we’d just driven six hours to see.

Poop. POOP, I say!

* Or Russell Fitzpatrick as he likes to be know while planning, or carrying out a heist, just in case the rozzers are after him.
** Along with other, more recently documented whiffs.
*** Though the boy next door has been peeking through it’s bedroom window, trying to catch a glimpse of it in its bra and pants.

Ooh! Ahh! ... And the art of buying socks

2009-06-30T05:31:00.003+01:00

Determined not to be out done by Russell, this morning I was the one making the unwholesome aromas. Yes. mine weren’t in the same league as his, but I tried, and that’s what’s important. Personally I’m blaming the fish and chips we had last night. I have a love/hate relationship with fish and chips, where I love them and they do horrible things to my insides. But like a fool I always go back for more. And this morning, Russell was the one suffering the collateral-damage-related consequences.

Revenge is a dish best served smelly.

After we’d done the door-barricading and duct taping, Russell and I headed out to Queenstown airport for our 08:20 flight over the mountains to Milford Sound. Which was delayed till 11:00 instead. So bleary of eye we went for a wander to take some photographs. Not a difficult task in New Zealand, you can’t hurl a Pentax SLR without braining at least half a dozen photo opportunities.

-- Just a quick aside here, in the pause between paragraphs I thought I’d break out my iPod Nano and listen to something epic (you might think this a little rude when I’m travelling in company, but Russell’s in the shower right now making mammal soap), but it’s buggered. Broken. Pish all use. Bloody thing. It’s been a loyal and faithful companion to me for two and a bit years, and now it’s decided to curl up its metaphorical toes and join the ranks of the undead* --

Where was I? Yes, right, so eventually we get on board a tiny Cesna, six-seater, single engine plane – piloted by Dan from Essex – and into the wild blue yonder we doth climb.** And from the moment our wheels left the tarmac it was ‘Ooh!’ and ‘Ahh!’ all the way to Milford Sound.

Actually that makes it sound as if we were in a low-budget porn film. But trust me, if you ever get the chance to visit the Armpit of Queenstown, hop on a little plane to Milford Sound. Don't take the bus. Don't drive. Fly. It’s wonderful, stunning, and a whole bag of other superlatives. I had a big cheesy grin on for the whole flight.***

And then we came in to land. It was straight out of Jurassic Park: flying down the Sound, blue water sparkling in the sunlight below us, massive mountains to either side, rain forest, palm trees... Ooh, ahh...

Then we got on the boat for a two hour cruise out to the Tasmin Sea and back again. Tell you what, Russell may be capable of producing nature’s own mustard gas, but he’s one hell of a tour guide. Having a degree in geography probably helps. Yesterday he explained the whole glacial thing (yes, we did it in school, but there’s a big difference between reading about glaciers in a book, and hearing about it from a fantasy author in a comedy woolly hat**** while looking out at a vast valley and lake formed by one of them), and today he narrated most of Milford Sound. Very clever chap is our Mr Kirkpatrick, for someone of restricted height.*****

The Sound was every bit as groovy as I’d been told -- only more so -- and on the way back we flew over loads more mountains, hidden lakes, and valleys. My cheesy grin was still intact by the time we touched down back in Queenstown, which isn’t bad going for me. Normally I can be relied upon for a good grump at least twice a day.

Of course, when we got back to the walk-in fridge/motel my iPod was suffering from hypothermic death, but other than that it’s been one of the best days off I’ve ever had. And as if flying over one of the most beautiful parts of the world wasn’t enough, I had cold feet this morning, so splashed out on a pair of uber-expensive merino socks from an eager sales lady at the airport. I wouldn’t normally do something like that, but I had cold feet, she had lots of socks, one thing led to another...

Just don’t tell She Who Must, OK? She doesn’t like me accepting hosiery from strange women.

* Why the undead have curly toes, I have no idea. Actually, I have the nasty suspicion that the poor wee thing’s frozen. The motel apartment we’ve got in Arrowtown is colder than a witches knicker drawer, every time we come back from a day out it’s like walking into a very big fridge. Assuming that the fridge was being used to store furniture, rather than chunks of greening cheese and mouldering ready meals.
** That’s the trouble with travelling around with best-selling fantasy authors, you end up speaking in ‘thee’s and ‘thou’s.
*** It was under my seat along with the life jacket.
**** Russell thinks it makes him look sexy.
***** Don’t want him getting ideas above his station... Which is about 4’3”, though he claims it’s 5’6”. Never trust a man in a comedy woolly hat.

Biological Warfare meets Lord Of The Rings

2009-06-29T10:33:00.002+01:00

Beer doesn’t agree with everyone. Some it makes merry. Some it makes horny. Some it makes sleepy. Some it makes miserable. Some it makes angry. And some end up producing the kind of smells that would make a tub of margarine run for the hills screaming for medical assistance while it’s eyeballs melted. Now, can you guess which kind of person Russell is?

Half past six this morning and he’d managed to produce an aroma that peeled off most of the wallpaper in the bathroom. We barricaded the door and sealed it off with duct tape, but still the foetid stench of rotting badgers oozed through to curl the carpet.

So we abandoned all hope, and the motel apartment, and sought refuge in the car instead. When the shrubs and trees surrounding said apartment started to go black and all shrivelly we high-tailed it out of there. For we are manly men! And manly men don’t hang about waiting to be suffocated.

Instead we set out on a jet-boat wilderness safari thing, figuring that the six hours trip would give Russell’s contribution to the world of biological warfare time to dissipate.

The trip started with a bus tour along Lake Wakatipu, pausing for a brief photo shoot as the rising sun painted the Humboldt Mountains with diluted Ribina. Huge grey and brown and white peaks, jagged like an Irish folk singer’s teeth, catching the first glints of the morning sun – absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately it was also cold enough to freeze the nipples off a walrus, but it’s a small price to pay to be out there in all that outdoorsy-wonder.

We tootled along for about an hour to the tiny town of Glenorchy, and then clambered off our bus and onto another one, for a diesel-grumbly judder into some of the most lovely mountains and valleys I’ve ever seen. Crisp white frost. More photo opportunities. More frozen nipples. All narrated by Ian our tour guide, who did almost as good a job of explaining stuff as Russell. Which is high praise indeed. He may be short, and he may produce the most unbelievably foul smells after a night on the beer, but he really knows his schist*.

And then it was time to disembark from the rumbly diesel bus and go on a brief nature hike. Dear Hairy Jesus and his Sainted Immersion Heater, it was cold! By the time we’d gone a hundred yards all the men were talking two octaves higher, because their testicles had retreated to somewhere around their armpits. It was like being kicked in the nadgers by Nature’s frozen flip-flop.

By the time none of us could feel our faces we were shepherd on board a wee jet-boat for a breakneck wheech down the Dart River back to Glenorchy. Turquoise water, gravel beds, shallow channels, all bordered by sodding huge jaggedy mountain ranges, dusted with snow and glowing against the clear blue sky. Not just stunning** but numinous. No wonder this bit of New Zealand gets used for every film going.

Then, following a brief but nasty lunch in a wee cafe, we got back on the bus for the trip back to Queenstown. It’s supposed to be the Geneva of the south, but it’s really more like Aviemore. An unbelievably ugly town surrounded by unbelievably beautiful scenery. The place is an armpit. And not the good kind of armpit either: it’s the kind of armpit that follows you down a darkened street, then mugs you and urinates in your hat.

By the time we got back to the motel the smell had moved on to decimate the wildlife elsewhere, so Russell and I celebrated with New-Zealand-style fish and chips.

I’m not buying him any more beer though...

* As the geologist said to the cartographer.
** OK, so I know I’m using that word a lot, but fucking hell this is seriously jaw-dropping stuff here.

Penguins, sex, and Pirates

2009-06-28T11:50:00.004+01:00

I have important pearls of wisdom to impart to you. 1: Never get Tabasco sauce in your intimate masculine areas. 2: Never trust anyone who says ‘this won’t hurt a bit’*. And 3: Never, EVER eat at any restaurant with a crudely-drawn pirate on the sign.

Actually, I’m going to expand Pearl Of Wisdom Number The Third to include any form of nautical doodle, theme, motif, or smell. But mostly pirates. If you see a pirate on the sign, RUN FOR THE HILLS!!! There, all you have to do is run around the hill one way, then tun around and go in the opposite direction. The pirate chasing you will be unable to handle the sudden change of direction, owing to only having one leg – the other being wooden – and will promptly fall over. Then you can rip the aforementioned artificial limb from his lower appendage and hit him over the head with it till he passes out, or away. Depending on how energetic you feel.

But I digress.

After his game of golf – which he lost – Russell and I set off for Oamaru, about three hours of flat motorway southwest of Christchurch. And when I say flat, I mean flat. This stretch of New Zealand makes Holland look lumpy. We tootled into Oamaru just in time to see the tiny blue penguins come in from the sea. Which was pretty damn cool. OK, so when they clamber up the steep stone incline from the crashing waves to the relative safety of their little penguin condominiums they move a little bit like rats wearing tuxedos, but other than that they’re very sweet.

Well, I say sweet... There was a lot of high-pitched rattly snoring going on**, and at one point a pair of the randy little buggers put on a live penguin sex show. And I’m not just talking about a discreet cut away to waves breaking and choo-choo trains going into tunnels, this was a full-on Bom-Chicka-Wa-Wa ‘Give it to me you vast 30cm-high flightless waterfowl of love you!’ kind of thing. But other than that, they’re just what you expect little penguins to be like.

Then I made the terrible mistake of letting Russell pick where we were going to eat that evening. As the All Blacks were playing France that evening, Russell wanted to find somewhere near the motel we were staying at. There was a place right next-door. Why don’t we try that?

And this brings us back to Pearl Of Wisdom Number The Third. It was truly, truly, fucking awful. Now I want you to bear in mind that I’ve eaten barbecued pig testicles, OK? My bar for what’s a bloody horrible meal has been set pretty damn high. And this place came close to clearing it without so much as a running jump. It was a buffet***. A buffet of the kind only ever spoken of in terrified whispers wherever chefs gather to tell their tales of woe. A buffet of the damned.

Seriously, if they serve food in hell, the bloke who committed this buffet is in charge of the catering arrangements. Russell opted for roast beef – which looked as if someone had burnt a couch and then sliced it thinly – and I had the gammon. Now, the gammon itself didn’t look too bad, and when I was up being served, the chef**** dolloped a little ladle of plumb sauce on the side. OK, thinks I, plumb sauce and gammon: that could work.

Ha. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...

If you want to replicate the taste try this: take a handful of gritty mud, vigorously rub it into the arsehole of a scabby dog, then dissolve the resultant sludge in a small jar of mouldy jam. Even then, that would probably be less offensive on the palate than what I ended up with.

But even this weapon of mass revulsion paled into insignificance when faced with the criminal negligence of the dessert section. After disappearing for five minutes, Russell came scampering back to the table, all excited and revolted at the same time. ‘You’ve got to go see the custard!’ he says, eyes glittering like a mental patient. ‘Go! Go see the custard!’

And he was right. It was a sight to be seen. Lumpy, pustular, revolting. As if a very large spot had been squeezed into the bain marie, then mixed with half a packet of wallpaper paste. Badly. I have no idea how anyone could possibly do that to a poor innocent custard, but somehow the grinning fiend in the poufy hat managed it.

The next morning – which contrary to common sense didn’t see us waking up in hospital with death-defying doses of food poisoning – we headed off before the crack of dawn. Just in case someone came and offered us breakfast, we travelled under assumed names: me dressed as a pilgrim father, Russell dressed as Widow Twanky. No idea why, but for some reason he had the costume with him*****. We didn’t stop running until we got to the Moeraki boulders.

From there on it was a rainy, foggy, cold and windy poop-fest of crappy weather, all the way from Moeraki to Alexandra, and then the sky turned blue, the clouds turned wispy, and the rain buggered off. After that we were in ‘Dear Jesus, that’s pretty...’ territory again. Huge mountains, gorgeous light, frost, things, stuff, and woo-hoo.

Tomorrow we go see if we can drown ourselves at 60mph.

* See Pearl Of Wisdom Number The First.
** Apparently that’s how they tell each other that everything is fine and no one has to worry about being eaten by a visiting crocodile.
*** ‘Buffet’ a word I’ll be giving the same kind of welcome as I would ‘Rectal Polyps’ from now on.
**** I use the word ‘Chef’ but I really mean ‘Sadistic Culinary Fuck-Weasel’
***** Even though he doesn’t really have the legs to carry it off.

Just like Old Zealand, only newer...

2009-06-27T02:36:00.003+01:00

I am now, officially, on the other side of the world. And you know what? It’s sodding pretty out here. Pretty and with more sushi bars than you can shake a fishy sick at. How much more could you want?

How about simulated suicide?

You see, I now know the answer to that age old question: if you jump off a building, are your eyes open or closed when you hit the ground? Now I have to confess that I’ve never jumped off a building before. The highest thing I’ve ever jumped off was the roof of our childhood home. And that was a bungalow, so it doesn’t really count. But yesterday, tired of all this international jet-setting I did leap from the Sky Tower in Auckland, on the North Island of New Zealand. 630 foot of vertical drop.

Normally I wouldn’t go near that kind of thing with a hairy monkey, but for some God-forsaken reason I kinda talked myself into it, and a testicle garotting safety harness. Of course, being Scottish I couldn’t do it on a nice sunny day, could I? No, I had to do it when the drizzle was at its drizzliest.

Well, when I say ‘drizzliest’ what I mean is that it was kinda overcast and drizzly right up to five minutes before I jumped, and it was overcast and drizzly again five minutes after I jumped, but when it came time for the actual jump, it was hammering down monsoon-stylie. Like taking a sodding bath in the sky.

They gave me a DVD of my jump and there’s so much water on screen I keep expecting Jack Cousteau to narrate the bloody thing. But I did it. And then I went for a beer. And then I squelched back to the hotel, with everyone in Auckland looking at me and wondering why I’d obviously gone swimming with all my clothes on.

But this airborne soggy lunacy is all in the past... Now I can be all sensible. Or as close to it as I actually get.

Soon as I was dried out from my Spiderman-esque adventure* I was whisked from the hotel to the airport by New Zealand’s very own Fantasy Novel Writing Powerhouse, Russell Kirkpatrick. You see, Mr Kirkpatrick** has kindly agreed to act as my guide for a wee tour around the south Island***. How cool is that? So this morning, after a cramped flight down to Christchurch, he commenced his guidely duties by sodding off for a game of golf with his brother, and lumbering his sister in-law Angela with entertaining the bearded Scottish bloke for the morning.

So the lovely Ange**** took me all around a mist-shrouded Christchurch, out to a mist-shrouded beach (with optional mist-shrouded pier), and then on to another beach that had forgotten to order it’s morning ration of mist., so was all sparkly and lovely. This is a stunningly beautiful part of the world. After just one morning I can really see why people emigrate. We had chips by the sea (lovely), lime milk shakes (lovely if you’re keen on washing up liquid as a flavour), and a stop over in Lyttleton, where I spent ages taking photographs of the amazing scenery and a couple of graveyards too*****.

This afternoon we’re off to see the penguins, the wonderful penguins of ... well, not OZ, obviously. But somewhere I can’t pronounce, let alone spell, where apparently I won’t be allowed to eat any of the penguins. *sigh*

Ah well, can’t have everything, I suppose...

* Is it just me, or is Spiderman a bit of Jessie? I mean all that, ‘Action is his reward’ bollocks. If I’m saving a bank from a semi-mechanical octopus man, I want my reward to be in the form of sodding huge piles of cash. And some scantly-clad dancing girls, thank you very much.
** He likes me to call him that, because I’m taller, younger, and considerably sexier than him.
*** Russell’s also a professional cartographer, so if we get lost on the trip, we’ve only got him to blame.
**** I should point out, that Ange has three kids, so was all skilled up to cope with being dumped with a random crime write-ist. Plus she’s a seriously nice lady with a slightly odd sense of humour. Which made the trip all the better.
*** They shot The Frightners in Lyttleton, one of my top 10 favourite films.

G'Day

2009-06-16T09:23:00.002+01:00

As you can probably tell from the complete lack of postage in recent weeks, things have got a bit hectic at Casa MacBride of late. Partly this is due to getting everything finalised for Halfhead coming out in September, partly it's down to trying to catch up with Book Number The Sixth (still no word back on the latest possible title), and partly it's down to the fact I'm jetting off to the Antipodean winter wonderland next Monday, and a whole heap of stuff has to be finished before I clamber onboard the plane.

Wow, even typing that is enough to set my blood pressure rocketing. "Next Monday" Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh! I'm actually really looking forward to it. Have been for years, and years, and years... It's, like, a whole different continent, dude! Where the mice are all huge and have wee pooches for their baby mice things. And you can eat them too. How cool is that?

The only trouble is that I now have to trust the family homestead to the care of She Who Must Be Watched Like A Hawk In Case She Tries To Blow Up The House Again. I could leave Grendel in charge, I suppose. After all, she reached her majority last week - she turned 5. Ah, children, they grow up so fast. And still manage to leave random frothy puddles of squishy barf on the kitchen floor when you least expect it. And are walking about in your bare feet.

Actually, here's a question for you: what's worse, stepping in cat barf in your bare feet, or when you're wearing socks? After all, if it's on your bare feet you can just hop to the sink and wash it off. If you're wearing socks it soaks right in. Urgh...

But I digress.

Something else happened last week (well, technically lots of things happened, it was a whole week after all. For example more of our lovely MPs were exposed as a bunch of thieving cock-weasels, and people were stunned and outraged by this most un-politicianish behaviour*), She Who Must Be The Luckiest Woman In The World and I celebrated fourteen years of marriedness**. Yup, I've managed to put up with her for fourteen years.

Apparently my knighthood is in the post.

* I've been meaning to post about the whole MPs expenses thing for ages. What I loved most of all was when they hounded the Speaker into early retirement. Their outraged argument seemed to be: "How could you! You were supposed to be in charge! Why did you let us get away with being thieving cock-weasels all this time? It's all your fault!" Hmm... personally I kinda think it's the MPs faults for being thieving cock-weasels in the first bloody place, don't you?
But I love the fact that everyone's so shocked that our politicians turned out to be less than squeaky clean and morally upstanding. I mean, come on: they're fucking politicians. What did you expect? I've never met one I wouldn't want to truss up with cable-ties, fasten to a lawn chair, and douse with a liberal mixture of honey and killer bees.
And when the aforementioned thieving cock-weasels get caught with their hand in the public purse, the defence always seems to be, "Everything I've claimed for was allowable under the rules...." But then, they would be as the 'rules' seem to be, "Claim for whatever you think you can get away with."
** I gave her anchovies as an anniversary gift. Lots and lots of horrible anchovies. She loves them, but then she's a bit strange.

Always the blushing bridesmaid?

2009-06-03T17:53:00.003+01:00

Yes, it's time for me to dust off the old purple crimpoline off-the-shoulder number with matching massive floral motif broach thing (that looks like a curtain manufacturer vomited all over it), while the stunning white layered number lays unloved and forlorn in the back of the wardrobe. Then I can spend the whole evening with mascara running down my cheeks, like a melting panda, while I stuff my face with stolen wedding cake.

Which is a kinda glass-is-half-empty way of saying that Broken Skin has been honoured with a shortlisting for the great Theakstons Crime Writers Novel of the Year 2009. Hurrah!

Previously I've been pipped at the post* by Allan Guthrie's TWO WAY SPLIT (2007), and Stef Penney's THE TENDERNESS OF WOLVES (2009). Damn their dark and evil hearts.

Of course this year I have a secret weapon - Broken Skin is chock-a-block full of filth, violence, and bondagy goodness. Mmm, who wouldn't want to vote for a book that features John Rickards' naked naughty parts?

...

OK, maybe I'm not helping my case here. Let me assure you, gentle reader, that John's genitalia only make a small appearance, and while it's unpleasant, it's over relatively quickly**. So it's nothing to give you nightmares. Even if you might never be able to look the man himself in the eye again.

*ahem*

Anyway, the lucky luminaries up for the TOPCNoTY this year are (in order alphabetical):

Death Message - Mark Billingham
The Accident Man - Tom Cain
Bad Luck And Trouble - Lee Child
Gone To Ground - John Harvey
Ritual - Mo Hayder
Garden Of Evil - David Hewson
A Cure For All Diseases - Reginald Hill
The Colour Of Blood - Declan Hughes
Dead Man’s Footsteps - Peter James
Broken Skin - Stuart MacBride
Beneath The Bleeding - Val McDermid
Exit Music - Ian Rankin
Friend Of The Devil - Peter Robinson
Savage Moon - Chris Simms

As usual, a very strong list, and there's some damn fine books on there. Though I am bitterly disappointed at the small number of bearded authors on the shortlist. Clearly this denotes prejudiced towards the clean-shaven! Boo! Hiss! And thrice more, hiss! When will the madness end?

Or something.

I think I'd find it pretty damn hard to predict a winner from the field of runners and riders, so it's going to be interesting to see the outcome.

If you're interested in exercising your democratic right to elect the best crime novel of the year, you can do it by romping over to the Festival website with your saucy computer mouse! Don't forget: every time you vote ... well, God's watching, OK?

And he has a beard.

* By which I mean 'got my arse kicked up and down the bookshelves'.
** As the government minister said to the greased-up septuagenarian prostitute.

The past leaves fingerprints

2009-05-28T09:22:00.003+01:00

There's a problem inherent with writing a series of books with the same central character - what happens to the past? Does it get forgotten about as soon as the books over, and we start again with a clean slate for the next book? Or do the things that happen leave their grubby fingerprints all over our characters?

"But, Stuart," I here you groan, in that bored way you do, "why would we care? Can't you just post another picture of a dead mouse and make a couple of knob jokes, instead of writing about ... well, writing?"

Yes, I could, but Judith's comment on the last post strikes me as a good excuse to be boring for a bit and put on my serious hat. The one without the comedy breasts and amusing farty noises...

At 4:24 PM, Judith said...

Just finished reading Blind Eye. Loved it. But please donn't send our favourite Scottish DS down that PTSD, alcoholic, could have something to do with an overbearing mother road to misery and ruin.After all some cops are normal and sane.

Now I have to confess that I really don't like chocolate cake. And that I'm not a big fan of the whole 'and the next day he forgot all about the horrific events of the last month and went about life as normal' thing. That big red button that resets everything back to the way it was. I know a lot of writers do it, but it makes my nipples itch with rage. Well, 'rage' is probably putting it a bit strong, it's more of a vague disquiet, but you know what I mean. For me, if a character's had a really shitty time of it in book 3 then I expect to see echoes of that in book 4.

Ray Banks does an excellent job of this with his Callum Innes books. Innes gets more and more fucked up with every book. He's like a real person! Shock, and indeed, horror. It's a brave thing to do, because it does give a series character a finite shelf life. If you're going to be writing a series character who spends each successive book being more and more traumatised by horrible things happening to him (or her) then sooner or later, they're going to be so screwed up there's no return.

Which makes that big red reset button seem all the more attractive. Press it and you can keep on writing the same characters over and over and over.

But I have to admit that I don't want to press it. I think Logan's getting more interesting as he goes. Certainly to write about. He's not the same person at the end of Blind Eye as he was at the start of Cold Granite. Or at least I hope he isn't.

Here's the thing though - I don't really want him to end up as a bitter lump of alcohol-soaked gristle. At least, not in the long term. OK, so he's never going to be the same naïve, bushy-tailed wee scamp he was to start with, but I don't see him turning into the classic police procedural cliché. If he does, then it'll definitely be time to kill him off.

And now, to lighten the mood, here's a picture of a dead mouse:

You'll have to wait for the knob joke.

Halfway home

2009-05-11T16:44:00.004+01:00

I didn't realise till this weekend what a shite hole Heathrow Terminal 5 was. A shiny, shiny new shite hole. Though I suppose I shouldn't complain, I did actually make it home with all my luggage, and these days that's a blessing to be counted. Like bunions on an old man's foot.

Anyway, yes: touring. That's me officially at the turning point of things. I have Noodled in Nottingham, lurked in Lincoln, ponced about in Piccadilli, and sung silly songs in Streatham. Got some good crowds as well, certainly the forecasts for doom-and-gloom in Piccadilli turned out to be a load of old badger scrotums, which was a relief. In the end we had a packed room with enthusiastic Polish swearing. Can't ask for more than that, can you?

So right now it's four down and four to go, so I've still got time to screw everything up. In the meantime, I'm spending my days hunched over my tiny wee travelling laptop in trains and hotel rooms, trying to catch up with Book Number The Sixth (which almost had a title, but now doesn't again *sigh*).

And there's a sodding heap to catch up on. Normally I start each book on the 1st of January, hungover or not. But instead of doing that, this year I've been rewriting HALFHEAD, the non-Logan non-series book coming out in September. Which means that instead of handing in the first draft of Book Number The Sixth on the 1st of May like I'm supposed to, I'm only just starting the damn thing now.

Eeeek!

Which is comforting in a 'there's a conga eel hiding in your toilet bowl' kinda way.

So, if I seem a bit distracted and flinchy - now you know why.

In other news of an eventy nature, I'm going to be putting my personal fuzzy parts on the chopping block in June and offering the axe to a selection of forensic specialists as part of the Macaulay Institute's: Murder, Mystery & Microscopes. The idea is that they take a look at some of my books, then tell me exactly where I've got things wrong. All in front of a live studio audience. It seemed like a good idea at the time...

Actually it should be a lot of fun. Certainly the experts involved are pretty damn groovy in the cleverness department:

Professor Dave Barclay, world renowned forensics expert and Senior Lecturer in Forensic Science at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen.
Dr Lorna Dawson, head of Soil Forensic Science at the Macaulay Land Use Research Institute.
Dr James Grieve, Police Forensic Pathologist and Senior Lecturer in Forensic Medicine at the University of Aberdeen.
And it's all going to be overseen by Northsound 2's Damien McLeod.

So I'm probably going to be in for a stiff kicking (he said, mixing his metaphors from the earlier image of testicle chopping as it was giving him the creeps).

And best of all, according to the fliers, "As excerpts from the book, descriptions and images of crime scenes may be of a graphic nature, this event is not suitable for children under 16 years of age."

Woo hoo! I has a PG rating.

Apparently the event's already sold out, but the Macaulay are still taking people's details, and if there's enough interest they'll run another one later in the year. If you're interested, you can register at murdermystery@macaulay.ac.uk

In the meantime, I suppose I could either go back to work, or play with the cat. There's half a mouse on the porch that looks as if it might be worth a prod...

You can never go wrong with half a dead mouse. Unless you try to make tempura with it. Then you end up with a little hairy nugget of batter. Which isn't quite as much fun as you'd think.

Just like the Rolling Stones*

2009-05-01T13:05:00.005+01:00

Now that Blind Eye has hit the bookshelves like a drunken ex-boyfriend, I'm going to be hitting the road, pimping the books to anyone who'll listen. And apparently (according to HarperCollins) it might be a good idea to actually tell people where I'm going to be.

Never one to rock the boat, or fart in the bath, I have acquiesced to their demands and publish for you here the list of stuff what I'll be doing over the next couple of weeks (and yes, I have stolen the descriptions from the venues). Mostly it's going to be me rambling on about stuff, things, and anything else that takes my fancy. Including, but not restricted to, rude songs and Polish swearing.

I've been told that the gig in Piccadilly is likely to be ... challenging. Apparently it's really hard to get people to go along to hear a bearded Scottish idiot being incoherent for an hour and a half. So, if you're in the neighbourhood, please do come along and drag everyone you know with you. Otherwise I'm going to feel like a right bloody idiot.

No change there then.

Tuesday, 5 May 2009WATERSTONE'S NOTTINGHAM BRIDLE
18:30 - 20:00
Tickets £3 from the store, redeemable against the featured book at the event.

Bestselling crime supremo Stuart Macbride will be with us to talk about and sign copies of his latest offering, 'Blind Eye'. Once again, Waterstone's Nottingham offers up a treat for crime fans everywhere!

Further details: 01159 484499
1-5 Bridlesmith Gate
Nottingham
NG1 2GR

Wednesday, 6 May 2009WATERSTONE'S LINCOLN HIGH ST
7:00PM
Tickets £3 now available

Crime writer Suart MacBride will be talking about and signing copies of his latest thriller.

Further details: 01522 540011
297 High Street
Lincoln
LN2 1AF

Thursday, 7 May 2009WATERSTONE’S PICCADILLY, LONDON
7:00PM
Tickets £3, redeemable against purchase of the promoted title on the night

The bestselling author will be discussing his new thriller 'Blind Eye'.

Further details: 0207 851 2400

Friday, 8 May 2009STREATHAM LIBRARY
7:00PM

As part of the 2009 Readers and Writers festival

63 Streatham High Rd
SW16 1PL

Tuesday, 12 May 2009NORTH SHIELDS LIBRARY
7:00PM

Crime writer Stuart MacBride will be talking about his books at a North Tyneside Council library next month.

Stuart is the top-ten best-selling author of several novels set in Aberdeen that feature DS Logan McRae.

He has been shortlisted for the Theakston's Old Peculiar Crime Novel of the Year Award twice, won the 2007 CWA Dagger in the Library for his body of work, and was named best breakthrough author at the 2008 ITV Crime Thriller Awards.

Tickets cost £2 and include a free glass of wine.

For further information TEL: 0191 200 5424
Central Library
Northumberland Square
North Shields
Tyne & Wear
NE30 1QU

Wednesday, 13 May 2009EAST BOLDON LIBRARY
7:30PM

£1.00 a ticket covers refreshment and stuff.

Further details: 0191 424 7853
Boker Lane
East Boldon
NE36 0RY

Thursday, 14 May 2009BLACKWELL BOOKSHOP – EDINBURGH
18:15 - 19:45pm

Blackwell's welcomes Stuart MacBride the bestselling Scottish author of Cold Granite and Flesh House.

Stuart will be introducing us to his latest in the Logan McRae thriller series set in gritty Aberdeen - Blind Eye.

Come along and enjoy a glass of wine whilst you listen to Stuart MacBride and gather some clues towards Detective Sergeant Logan McRae's fate.

This event is ticketed, but tickets are FREE. Tickets are available from the front desk.

Further details: 0131 622 8206
Blackwell Bookshop
52 - 63 South Bridge
Edinburgh
EH1 1YS
events.edinburgh@blackwell.co.uk

Friday, 15 May 2009BORDERS GLASGOW
6:30PM

Come and meet bestselling Scottish crime writer Stuart Macbride on Friday 15th May at 6.30pm, as he talks about and signs copies of his fantastic new DS Logan McRae novel Blind Eye.

Further details: 0141 222 7700
98 Buchanan Street
Glasgow
G1 3BA

* Only without the drugs. Booze. Groupies. Rock & Roll. And wrinkles.

Happy belated Jesus isn't dead any more day...

2009-04-13T08:53:00.003+01:00

You might not have noticed -- unless you've been hiding in the bushes on the other side of the road spying on my house like some sort of demented Claudia Schiffer* -- but I've been away for a while, living the life of Riley in Las Vegas. Only Riley clearly has a pretty crappy life, because Vegas isn't exactly the nicest place on the planet. Unless you're fond of cities where everyone's sole mission in life is to screw you over for every dollar you've got.

Where was I?

Ah yes, Easter.

I have to admit that I find organised religion both fascinating and abhorrently incomprehensible at the same time. Not fascinating enough to want to do any actual research or study into the subject though, I mean, that would just be madness. No, much more fun to make sweeping uninformed statements.

Take the Greek gods, for example. Zeus was forever knocking up dusky maiden perverts. Sometimes he was disguised as a swan, sometimes as a shower of gold, sometimes as a bull... And by these unions he would begat children, because that's what you do when you're a god, you go around begatting all over the place. You have to wonder what kind of woman is prepared to go to bed with a swan though, don't you? We've all seen birds 'gettin' busy' on nature programs, haven't we? At any point did you find yourself thinking, "Cor, I fancy some of that!"? If you did you're a dirty-freak pervert and should seek professional help.

Personally, if I was a god**, I wouldn't go about begatting with women who like to shag swans. I mean, what kind of mother are they going to be to my illegitimate half-deity children? Not exactly going to set a good example, are they?

But I digress. I've been thinking of setting up my own religion. Now you might be thinking, "Pffff... yes, you've got a sexy beard, but what qualifications do you have?" Well, I've got a science fiction novel coming out in September***, and there's a clear precedence for that kind of thing being parleyed into world religions.

Of course, to keep things simple I'm only going to have the one commandment: 'Don't be a dick.' This way we avoid all those tedious rules other religions come up with to justify their existence. Why take ten commandments into the shower, when you can just not be a dick and go?

According to She Who Must Be Consulted On Topics Of Theological Debate Because She Used To Be A Sunday School Teacher that's the guiding principle of Christianity: love unto something or other with neighbours... or something. I can't remember all the details, which is why my guiding principle is just four words long. A religion for the text-message loving popcorn generation.

As long as you remember to wear the ceremonial beard now and then, we should be good to go.

And all it's going to cost you is 20% of your annual income. Can't say fairer than that, can I?

* I've still got that restraining order in place, Claudia, so stop coming over here and stealing my underpants off the washing line! Or I'll set the cat on you.
** And obviously if there was any justice in the world I would be. And then there'd be some smiting! Oh yes indeedy!
*** If I ever finish rewriting the sodding thing.

The Audio Oubliette

2009-03-25T05:36:00.004Z

You may have noticed a distinct lack of postage around my gaff of late*. Which probably means you'll have ended up with one of those irritating little postcards thingies from the royal mail saying, 'Someone's sent you a letter! We're not going to tell you who they are, or what they've sent, but they've fucked up on the number of stamps and now you're going to have to make a 28 mile round trip to the nearest depot and cough up £1.19 to find out!' Or something like that.

And it always turns out to be some sodding crap you've got no interest in, doesn't it?

Anyway, I digress. The reason I've not been about for a while is that I've been down in Bath, sitting in an airless cupboard, locked away from the sunshine, while recording the unabridged audio version of Blind Eye. See? That's me there...

To be honest, when they asked me to do it I thought, 'Yeah, why not? How hard can it be?'

Bloody. That's the answer. It's bloody hard. And I'm not talking, 'changing the oil on a Fiat Panda' tough, I'm talking 'performing keyhole surgery on your own kneecaps' tough. With a potato peeler.

And to make matters even worse, the book's full of Polish names like: Lubomir Podwoiski, Gorzałkowska,Wisniewski, Bielatowicz, Gorzkiewicz... none of which are pronounced the way they look. And that's before we even get on to the actual Polish.

The pain. THE PAIN!

Luckily I had expert guidance in the personage of Jennifer, head honcho at Talking Issues,** sitting on the other side of the glass and putting up with ... well, me for a whole week (normally she's used to professional actors, who know what they're doing and stuff). Ably supported by the lovely Caroline and Sue.

In addition to doing all the audio books in the world (this may be a slight exaggeration on my part) they also do spoken word editions of the Economist. Which is pretty cool and gets a HUGE number of downloads every week.

Now I can hear you shrugging your shoulders from here. Stop it. I'm not banging on about the Economist thing merely to big up the company, no: this is shameless self-promotion! That's right, after about a decade in the professional voice-over wilderness, I have made my triumphant return. Fed up with listening to me fluff my reading of chapter fifty two for the umpteenth time, Jennifer got me to read one of the stories in this week's Economist instead. So business leaders the world over will be listening to me telling them about how Dubai frowns on displays of public naughtiness.***

Hurrah! Fame at last.

* Ooh - he sounds just like something off the Sweeny, doesn't he?
** Plug, plug: If you have an audio need, why not contact Talking Issues - your one stop shop for all your reading-out-loud-stuff needs.
*** Free download if you're a subscriber, or a paltry £4.00 if you just want to know what I sound like after four days in the studio.

Ruminations of a fiscal nature

2009-03-09T22:36:00.005Z

I've been doing a lot of shouting at the TV lately. Now you're not to think that this is some sort of insidious side effect of turning forty (forty: Dear Hairy Jesus and His Amazing Performing Fishies...), I've been a TV ranter for years. And Years. And years.

It's not that I enjoy hurling abuse at the little people on the idiot box, it's just that they so fucking deserve to be ranted at. And every year the world of TV seems to give ground to a few more morons, idiots, and tosspots.

Take the current plans to rescue the economy, or as it's officially known, 'Quantitative Easing'. Which appears to be wank-weasel speak for 'AAAAAAARGH! IT'S ALL GOING DOWN THE CRAPPER! PRINT MORE MONEY: QUICK!' How stupid do they think we are? Do they really think that slapping a technical-sounding name on it is going to make us all nod our empty little heads and go, 'Yup, them there financial guys sure do know what they is doing. Yup, yup, yup...' Presumable to the sound of banjos playing and incest. Call it what it fucking is, and stop treating us like sodding imbeciles.

But what really roasted my toast was the statement that, 'Hopefully this will get the banks lending again...' Hopefully? What kind of responsible fiscal policy includes the word 'hopefully'? 'Hopefully' is a word better suited to sentences involving full-frontal nudity. Unless the sentence also includes the words 'Anne Widdicombe', in which case it's not such a good idea after all.

And I should point out that I'm not against 'Quantitative Easing'. I'm neither for it nor against it. It's not something I have a strong opinion on (other than the whole wank-weaselry required to come up with the term), not like, say, people who wear white socks, black trousers and black shoes. It makes you look like a knob, OK? Remember the Michael Jackson videos, back when he still had a face that could pass for human? What was he wearing? Black trousers, black shoes, and white fucking socks. Now, I'm not going to say that wearing this sartorial cluster-fuck is going to lead to your nose collapsing while you're prosecuted for child abuse and your monkey turns to a life of hedonistic excess ending up in it ODing on the toilet with a burger in one hand and a copy of Love me Tender in the other, but it's a possibility, OK? That's all I'm saying.

The idea that anything will 'hopefully' encourage the banks to stop acting like the biggest bunch of irresponsible, greedy cock-ferrets we've seen in ages, is a bit rich. 'Hopefully' my pert and fuzzy bum.

Look at the Royal Bank of Scotland - She Who Must Be Kept Further And Further From Anywhere Civilised People Congregate, Lest They Chase Her Through The Village Streets With Burning Pitchforks and I have been thinking about moving house. Buying somewhere even further out in the stick than we live in now. Because, quite frankly, I'm tired of the neighbours complaining about the agonised screams of dying hitchhikers coming from my basement. So I phoned up my local RBS and asked them if the Credit Crunch (which sounds like a breakfast cereal for kids who want to grow up to be accountants) was making it more difficult to get a mortgage with them. 'Oh no,' says the woman on the other end of the magic talking bone, 'our policy for lending hasn't changed at all.'

Good for them. Nice to know all that government money we spent bailing their -- insert colourful expletive here -- company out wasn't a complete waste of time. And then I went in and we talked mortgages. And then she told me what the arrangement fee was going to be. £2,000.00 And then I tried hard to suppress the urge to urinate on her desk.

Two thousand pounds. To arrange something that was free about six years ago. Two THOUSAND pounds*.

Hmmm, yes, it looks as if your lending policy hasn't changed at all -- you're still looking for new and inventive ways to screw us all over. Bravo. Well done.

And then there are the banks offering their customers 'free financial advice'. Right, because they've done such a good job managing our money so far. It's like taking child-rearing advice from a rabid badger. A rabid chainsaw-wielding badger. With your genitals in its scabby paw**.

Could I make a brief appeal on the behalf of the nation: can we all be allowed to kick a banking executive in the groin every time another shitty financial story comes on the news? I think it would make the world a happier place.

Would make me a lot happier anyway...

* OK, OK - you got me, I'm exaggerating for comedic effect. It was £1,900.00
** This does assume that the badger is capable of operating a chainsaw in the first place, and is able to do so one-handed. Or one-pawed, I suppose. And where the hell is a badger going to get a chainsaw from in the first place? What sort of idiot sells a dangerous item of horticultural equipment to a badger with rabies? And where did the badger get the money from in the first place? Probably mugging old ladies with it's sycophantic posse of tattoo-covered biker squirrels. Fucking evil badger bastards.

Ominosity

2009-02-26T18:49:00.002Z

I went for a haircut today. OK, so that's hardly starting a post with a bang, but bear with me, it's leading up to something. I'm not promising that something is going to be particularly good, but you're here now so you might as well give it a go. You can hum to yourself if it makes the time go any quicker. OK?

Good.

So, yes, haircut. There I am, sitting in a seat designed for Wee Jimmy Cranky, getting my hairs cut* when Gordon - the man in charge of the scissors - says, 'So this'll be your last pre-forty haircut, then.'

You know what? I'd never thought about it that way. But he's right, it was the last haircut I'd ever have as an even vaguely young person. And that got me to thinking that everything I did today was going to be the last time I did it before I was forty. Well, unless it was something I was planning on doing more than once - like having a cup of tea, or going to the toilet. Two not unrelated activities.

Mind you, as a small aside, I made the mistake of buying a copy of the Big Issue today while out shopping for birthday treats, and leaving said magazine on the floor of the bathroom. 'And?' I hear you say, 'So what? There's a bunch of nasty horsey magazines in there too. Don't hear you moaning about them. What did the Big Issue ever do to you?'

What did it do to me? It put a big photo of Margaret Thatcher on the cover, that's what it did. Now, every time I go to the toilet, her face is staring up at me from the linoleum. I don't want an ex-Prime Minister staring at my intimate regions while I'm about my toilette. It's not wholesome.

Anyway, so even if it was something I was planning on doing more than once (not counting going to the toilet, because I'm now a bit creeped out by Maggie ogling my saucisse de l'amour and have to go wee in the neighbour's garden instead) at some point during the day it would be the last time I did it before turning forty.

Forty.

Rhymes with 'OH DEAR JESUS I'M OLD!'

And another thought occurred to me: was I going to see another forty years? Now when I was wee, I never thought I'd get this far, but then I always assumed I was immortal anyway, so it didn't really matter. No one's surprised when you make it all the way to forty. First forty years? Could do that standing on your head. Which would make people look at you funny if you go to parties, but sod them - long as you've got crisps.

The second forty years though ... that'll make me eighty. If I manage them. And if I can then it means I'm now officially middle-aged. Urgh. Middle aged, and what do I have to show for it? A bad back, and sinuses I wouldn't wish on ... actually, I can think of a number of people I'd happily curse with my sinuses. That'd sodding teach them. Bastards.

...

I've forgotten where I was going with this.

...

Anyway, to celebrate the whole turning forty thing I'm going to be dragging my bearded self up to Inverness on Saturday to give a crime writing workshop with Mr Allan 'Happy Potato' Guthrie. We did the same thing in Shetland last week, and it seemed to go OK, so I'm hoping that the experience of repetition will carry me through the inevitable hangover.

After that, I suppose I'm going to have to get all fit and healthy and boring. Otherwise there's no chance in a badger's bumhole I'm going to survive the next forty years.

Then what would you do, eh?

* Oh yes, when I go to the hairdresser I expect my money's worth.

Part-Frozen Mice

2009-02-10T09:53:00.006Z

OK, so I'll admit it, I've been letting the whole 'communication with the outside world' thing go mouldy in the back of the fridge. Next to that bag of Brussels sprouts I've been hoarding since three weeks before Christmas.

I like Brussels sprouts. I like broccoli too, but for some reason, whenever there's a trapped farty smell wafting out of the salad drawer in the fridge, it's always one or the other that's causing it.

Of course with the weather being what it is right now - sodding freeeeeeezing - not everyone is suffering from a case of the mouldys. The mouses Grendel brings home to visit with the Death Fairy are every bit as fresh and tasty today as they were last night, when they were dragged kicking and squealing from their little mousey igloos.

I wonder if they're technically mousecicles, and if so, can I market them to cats in hot countries? I bet if you're a ginger tabby living in the Maldives, you'd be grateful for an ice-cold mouse right about now. With a crunchy, chewy centre. The fur would keep them frozen for longer, and the tail makes a natural stick! There's a fortune to be made there. Or there would be if cats had any disposable income.

But I digress. Yes. Right - hermit like behaviour.

In an attempt to pretend I'm not some sort of shut-in mad person with a penchant for collecting mouldering brassicas I'm getting out and about a bit this year. (oh, you hussy!) Last week I strutted my cold, but funky stuff at Barrhead Community Library, down Glasgow way. And next Thursday I'm going to be hauling any stuff of a funk-like nature I have left down to Wester Hailes library, where Lin Anderson will be showing hers off too.

Which sounds a bit dirty.

And probably will be.

I've even started doing interviews again, believe it or not. If you've got Sky Arts on your telly, you can see me making a complete prat of myself on The Book Show this Thursday (12th), where I'll be getting my Pooh on for the ladies. Oh yes. You know you want it!

I also spoke to a nice young lady from the Highland Times about some workshops I'm going to be doing with that international man of disappearing hamsters, Allan Sunshine Guthrie. I think the interview went OK. Certainly the newspaper lady did a lot of giggling, and I don't think that was all down to my manly sexual magnetism. Not down the phone anyway. In person I can pick up filing cabinets with it. Which is handy if you need to hoover underneath them.

Well, at my time of life it helps to have something going for you.

There's a hole in your bottom, dear Monday, dear Monday...

2009-01-26T17:39:00.002Z

I think I may have accidentally pissed off God this weekend. I'm not sure exactly what it is I did, but She's certainly doing a damn fine job of getting her own back.

To start with, all the lights at the front of the house went, 'Fut!' Just like that. Fine one minute, 'FUT!' the next. And it's not exactly bright around here in the evenings, coming home after five is like clambering about inside a nun. Dark, dark, dark, dark.

"So why don't you replace the lightbulb then, Oh Beardy DIY Wonder?" I hear you cry. Because the damn thing's rusted shut, that's why. All the screws on the outside light have fused together into one brown metaly lump. Not even anointing it with holy WD40 helps. The screws are ... well ... screwed. Going to have to hack it all away from the wall and replace it from scratch.

"Yes," you say, with that mildly bored expression you've been perfecting ever since you first made the mistake of coming here, "but that hardly counts as a disaster of Biblical proportions, does it?"

Not on its own, no. But like all good Biblical plagues, you have to start out small. You don't want to jump right in with the smiting, do you? No, you want to work your way up to it. More fun that way.

So the second thing that happened, was that the 4Trak rustbucket truck of loveliness decided that leprosy sounded fun, and wouldn't it be great if the rear wheel arches decided to part with the bodywork? Tee-hee. Of course, this was after it experimented with mouse infestations. Right now the thing's clarted in little poisonous mouse hotels. Come for the tasty bait, stay for the death...

The third thing that happened was much funnier though -- the boiler packed in. It went 'FUT!' too. And made a noise that's a little bit like 'FUT!', only I spelt it a little differently, with a 'CK' and no 'T'. I pronounced it really loudly too. It probably didn't help, but for a fraction of a second, it made me feel better. Not warmer though. It's sodding freezing right now. Dark and freezing. We have Eskimos outside, stumbling about and bumping into things, complaining that they can't feel their feet.

But that pales into insignificance compared to the little treat God laid on me today. Like some sort of wrathful chicken, whose egg is a big stinky ovoid of vengeance... The laptop curled up it's little digital tootsies and died. Catastrophic hard drive failure, taking everything -- including all the work I've done on Book Number The Sixth -- with it.

All together now: 'FUT!'

I can't hear you: 'FUT!'

One more time: 'FUT!!!'

Tomorrow I think I'm just going to stay in bed.

But spring hasn't sprung...

2009-01-08T13:20:00.003Z

It seems to be that time of year again, when the frost is crisp on the ground (unless you live somewhere warm, in which case it probably isn't, but you can recreate the same kind of idea by dusting your garden with talcum powder and keeping your socks in the freezer*) and the first green shoots of the early season memes poke through the hoary earth. A time of rebirth, or in John's case getting older and smellier.

I feel his pain**, for this year I too become another year older. Well, I suppose we all do, unless we have a prior appointment with a thin chap in a big black robe wielding a variety of gardening tools. But I have a particular birthday coming up. A birthday of DOOM! DOOM I TELLS YA! *ahem*

Now when I started out as a fresh-faced debut novelist way back in the misty days of nostalgic 2005, I was advised to start lying about my age. No one wants a fusty old debut novelist, they said, people want their debut novelists to be young and sexy and not fusty*** and old. You must pretend to be thirty one.

That's right, dear reader, I was told to lie, like a middle-aged lady forever celebrating her thirty sixth birthday.

Now, I'm not much of a one for lying -- OK, so I sort of do it for a living: making up lies about people who don't exist, but in general life I frown upon it -- so I became increasingly vague about the whole thing. Which caused a certain journalist to forever be stricken from my Christmas Card list.

But this year... This year I hit the big Four Zero. The transition point from 'Not A Kid Any More' to 'Old Enough To Know Better' and a stone's throw from 'Well, He Had A Good Innings'

*shudder*

I can't decide if I want to do something to mark the occasion. Do I want a party? The last one ended up with jelly going everywhere. Do I want to do some sort of extreme sport thing, like bungee jumping (nope - that way lies detached retinas), mountain biking (I'm proud to say that the bike I bought twelve years ago has lain unused in various sheds for ten of them), naked alligator wrestling (high risk of genitalia being bitten****), or even paint balling (all that running around in the woods smacks too much of effort ... and puts me in mind of Deliverance for some reason)

Maybe I should just settle for hiding under the duvet that day, hoping that nothing important falls off?

But, I hear you cry, what's this got to do with the seasonal burst of memes? Well, I've been tagged to do a 'Reveal 16 Random Things About Yourself' by Sandra, but I can't. This is because I have to save up my random secrety things for a panel at this year's Harrogate festival, and if I give away all my secrets now, it's going to cost me a sodding fortune on the night. So instead of sixteen little secrets, I've just let you in on the one BIG one.

Don't say I'm never good to you.

* When you're not wearing them, obviously.
** It's lumpy, if you're interested.
*** I don't like the word 'fusty'. I always want to spell it 'foosty' which has more of a ring about it, and if you're typo-tastic (which we all know I am) it's less likely you'll end up accidentally typing the word 'fisty', which would have altogether less wholesome implications.
**** And alligators don't like it if you bite off their genitalia.

We has mice...

2008-12-31T15:27:00.003Z

Yes as 2008 limps and coughs its rattling way to a halt, I have a sorry admission to make: we have mice. Not in the house, and not in the garden - Grendel is far too conscientious in her slaughtering of the local fauna for that - no, our mice are in an all together more embarrassing location.

She Who Must Have A Four-Wheel-Drive Truck Thing To Get Up And Down The Country Lanes Of Much Muddiness And Occasional Snow has a mouse-infested car.

Well, I say 'mouse-infested', but we've never actually seen any of twichy-nosed little buggers, so it could only be the one mouse. But if that's the case it's a sodding dedicated mouse. Probably huge, with like, ten legs and teeth the size of kitchen knives, and a tail like a pig on steroids... or something. It's a cheeky wee bugger as well, last time I drove She Who Must's Daihatsu 4Trak there was a single, insolent mouse jobbie right there on the dashboard behind the steering wheel.

A jobbie.

There was a mouse jobbie in my wife's car. The rotten little furry bastard has been eating things as well: the underside of the driver's seat looks like someone's taken a cheese grater to it. Next up will be the electrics.

Apparently this isn't that uncommon for people who live in the country. The mice like to climb up the tyres, get into the bodywork via the wheel arches, and then live the life of Riley... assuming Riley was a small mouse trapped inside a rusty Daihatsu 4Trak that smells of horse. Which doesn't sound so great to me, but then I'm not a mouse.

Grendel's no help either. Yes, she's a dab paw at slaughtering the little rodenty sods when they're in the wild, but she hates getting into the car. Every time we put her in there she starts to shout rude things about not wanting to go to the vet. Very, very rude things. The sort of things a fluffy cat shouldn't even know how to spell, let alone shout.

Of course, I suppose I could get some mousetraps and plant them about the car's interior, bait them with peanut butter and wait to see what happens... but that seems a tad surreal.

"What are you doing this weekend, Stuart?"
"Oh, I'm buying a bunch of mousetraps for my wife's car."
"Your wife's car? Is it eating holes in the skirting boards? Devouring all your cheese? What kind of crazy-arsed car did you buy?"
"No, you idiot, the car got mice."
"The car's got mice?"
"Yup."
" ... OK, no more wine for you."

Plus it's the festive season. Who wants to evict a little fuzzy mouse over Christmas? That's like some sort of diseased Disney movie, isn't it? Where we follow our plucky mouse hero as the nasty man with a beard tries to evict him from the innards of an ancient Daihatsu 4Trak by a succession of ever more desperate plans. And in the end we all learn something about love,, and tolerance and the importance of friendship. *shudder*

I'll give the little sod till tomorrow. Then he's out of there.

In the meantime, I wish you all a good Old Year's Night, and Happy New Year when it comes. Unless you're a mouse: in which case you can bugger off.

Which part of 'No' don't you understand?

2008-12-16T08:34:00.005Z

I've been meaning to post about this for a while, but recently I've been a little 'blessed' by the Mucal Fairie*. Which is never quite as much fun as one thinks when replying to the gilt-edged calling card he leaves on your sleeve. Well, I say 'gilt'... it's kinda shiny, so that's almost the same thing.

Anyway, yes, things: since I started writing this crime fiction malarkey, I've got to know a number of police officers and all of them are mightily pissed off that SPSA (the Scotish Police Services Authority) have all gone on some sort of lunchtime Absinthe bender and decided that it would be really, really good idea to shut the forensic lab for Grampian and shift everything down to a new-build facility in Dundee.

Wow, I can't see anything daft about that, can you? I mean, it's not as if the police need urgent round the clock access to forensic and fingerprint facilities, is it? They're not going to mind having a two hour round trip to the labs are they? Be nice for them, bit of a drive up and down to Dundee**, get out of the office for a while, look at the scenery. Not like they've got anything better to do, is it? Like -- ooh, I don't know, let's go out on a limb here -- catch bloody criminals?

'Aha,' you say, with that winsome smile of yours, 'but they don't actually have to go to Dundee, do they? They could totally just give them a phonecall, or an email. Or maybe send them a nice bunch of flowers.' Well, you know what: there's a huge difference between meeting someone face-to-face and sending them an email. Plus, we have something called the 'Chain of evidence' which means you can't just stick a blood-stained knife in the post (first class of course, I mean, let's not be silly about this) to the lab in Dundee and hope anything you get off of it will actually stand up in court. Every bit of evidence has to be signed for, supervised, passed from A to B in a very controlled manner, so even if you're not getting police officer acting as delivery boys (and girls), you're still going to have to have someone legally accountable do it. Not to mention just how incredibly important it is for forensic scientist to know about the area they're dealing with.

But don't just take it from me, this is what one of my mates who works for Grampian Police Force Headquarters says about it:

"Murder investigations in the north and north-east could be put in jeopardy if Aberdeen's forensic laboratory is closed..."'The Scottish Police Services Authority have proposed to close down the Aberdeen Forensic Laboratory and Fingerprint Dept, and move all the work to a new facility in Dundee.

This move is being opposed by Grampian Police, the Grampian Joint Police Board, UNISON, and several local MSPs who have been mounting a campaign against the closure.

This closure WOULD have a negative effect on crime detection and policing in the north east of Scotland. In the past few weeks alone, Aberdeen has seen three murders, the investigations of which have greatly benefitted from the forensic services being based locally. The Aberdeen forensic services enjoy close working relationships with the Police, helping to fight serious and volume crime in the north east of Scotland. As well as the negative impact on the ability to investigate crime, moving the facilities to Dundee would also have massive implications for transportation of productions, as well as scientists attending courts and crime scenes.

The SPSA, at the request of the Justice Secretary, are now carrying out a 'consultation' process, however, this process is flawed. The SPSA are not impartial, and so should not be carrying out the consultation in the first place. Secondly, they are not listening to the huge volume of reasonable and valid arguments being put forward to keep the forensic services in Aberdeen.

UNISON have now prepared an e-petition on the Scottish Parliament website and you can get to it here.

If you care about the quality of the provision of forensic science to the north-east of Scotland, PLEASE log on and sign the petition, and circulate the link to as many people as you can.'

That's the polite version.

I don't know a single person in, or associated with, Grampian Police that thinks taking all the forensic and fingerprint work and sodding off to Dundee is a good idea. The Chief Constable says: "Murder investigations in the north and north-east could be put in jeopardy if Aberdeen's forensic laboratory is closed..." How could that possibly not be a good thing?

So I asked about and got another couple of quotes***:

"The SPSA have been an absolute disaster since coming into being in April 2007. Their only success has been in destroying the top class forensic service that the Police Forces have managed to build up over the years."

"They're incompetent, disorganised, have their priorities all wrong, and don't seem to realise that their creation was to make the provision of forensic services in Scotland better - their own website claims that they wish to create 'a world class forensic service'. Bollocks. They have only succeeded in hindering an already excellent service."

"The idea to close the Aberdeen lab and move everything to Dundee is ill-conceived, and based on inaccurate, skewed data (and downright lies), and will lead only to a reduction in the quality of the forensic service provision to the north east of Scotland. The SPSA are one of the worst things to happen to Scotland in a long time."

It's pretty easy to see that there's a lot of unhappy people out there, people who're really dedicated to doing a good job, but don't believe this is the right way to go about it.

Personally, and you know, just speaking for myself, I think it's a daft idea, that no one who's going to be affected by is in favour of. The only people who seem to want this are the SPSA -- and as they're the ones doing the 'consultation' it's a fair bet which side they're going to come down on.

I've been and signed the online petition. Fancy joining me?

* And his close personal friend the Pleurisy Pixie.
** Not that there's anything wrong with Dundee, it's just not where we should be doing our forensic science work.
** From sources that I'm going to keep anonymous, because, you know, dude, this is like their jobs and I don't want to get them into trouble.

Come sit on me...

2008-12-01T17:38:00.003Z

That's one good thing about being a tad on the podgy side: I'm very soft and squishy to sit on. Yeah, make yourself comfortable, Baby, I want you to be relaxed when I do my thang...

*ahem*

By which strange and dubiously erotic meanderings you're supposed to be able to tell that I'm going to be a chair. Not just any chair, but a comfy chair. That's right, in 2010 I'm going to be the comfy chair of The Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. For four whole days at the end of July I'll be desperately trying not to cock up the biggest crime writing festival in the whole damn world*. I'm planning on at least a couple of ulcers in the process, and possibly a spell in the Betty Ford clinic, or whatever the Aberdonian equivalent is**.

Now there are upsides to this -- I get to pick who I want to be on panels and stuff (well, after the due and democratic process of mud wrestling with rest of the programming committee has taken place) Which is kinda cool, don't you think?

I like to think of myself, in my capacity as comfy chair, as a beneficent dictator, and so, to maintain the impression that I've not actually annexed, invaded, or 'settled' anyone or thing I shouldn't have***, I'm going to throw the floor open to suggestions. Hell, as I'm in generous mood, I'll also throw two windows open**** and the bathroom door. Can't say fairer than that, can I?

So roll up, roll up: tell me who you'd like to see special guesting, or panelling at Harrogate 2010.

Stuart now sits back in his seat and waits for the inevitable stampede of silence and tumble weed...

* Note: I said it was the biggest FESTIVAL in the world -- conventions are completely different beasts.
** Probably a shed at the bottom of someone called Sandy's garden, where you have to wear a haddock-skin loincloth and battle velociraptor-sized seagulls for really good fish and chips three times a day. That's the kind of thing that builds character you know. Yes, you may loose a few appendages, but ... er ... Hmm, 'loincloth' + 'lost appendages'... Eek! OK, so maybe it's not such a good idea after all.
*** Just in case anyone from the UN Security Council is reading this and feeling all rowdy and frisky.
**** Not for long though, as it's sodding freezing up here in the North East of Scotland. She Who Must Be Taken Out and Shown Exotic Things and I went to the international Market on Sunday in an attempt to purchase various unusual comestibles, and it was so cold you could see our breath as we exhaled into the frosty air. Which is OK if you haven't got a beard. If you do have a beard it acts as a condenser, and you end up with your top lip all covered with hairy dew, so you look like you've got a runny nose and can't be arsed blowing it. Not the best of looks, I think you'll agree. No one in the history of sane people ever looked at someone else and said, "God, your bogies look sexy tonight!"

Murder and Mushrooms

2008-11-27T07:27:00.005Z

Today I'm filling in for that terrible overachiever Zoë Sharp* over at Murderati. Normally Murderati posts are full of wit and wisdom on publishing and writing and all that malarkey. Not so mine. Mine is the usual unreconstructed ramblings of a man who should really get out more.

BUT - and it's a big one** - what you will find over at Murderati is the now legendary Mushroom Soup recipe mentioned on the cover flap of Cold Granite (the one people keep emailing me about). Yes, I'm finally breaking nearly four years of stony silence and coming clean on the soup front.

In other non-soup-related news, I have decided to fill my new-found free time by getting started on the dreaded BOOK NUMBER THE SIXTH! Speak it's name in hushed tones, in case you invoke its dreaded deadly dread. Or something.

Well, I don't know, do I?

*She can fly a plane,teach horsey dressage, build her own house, shoot things competitively, disable a cross-channel ferry, work as a professional photographer, kill you with her bare hands, and write damn fine books while she's doing it.
** Oh, post-related foreshadowing!

Erm...

2008-11-21T11:47:00.003Z

I have a confession to make - I haven't got a clue what to do with myself. Which is different from my normal 'not having a clue what I'm doing', and therefore a little harder to deal with. Since I handed in the second draft of Book Number The Fifth, I've been something of a loose wheel. I've tried being ill for a while, I've sort of caught up on my reading, and I've cleaned all the squiggles off of my whiteboard, ready for BLIND EYE to come back from my editorial super ninjas. I've even thought about tidying up my study.

Right now it looks like I'm planning on opening an experimental landfill. Or a retirement home for little bits of paper. Wheel them out into the sunshine once a day and feed them coco, make sure they take their medication, that kind of thing.

I've even started in on the research for Book Number The Sixth, but for some reason, I'm having difficulty talking myself into sitting down and actually doing some serious planning on the damn thing. So instead, I'm sitting here house-sitting for my parents while they're away. They have the builders in* and as everyone knows builders have to be looked after with cups of tea, petted, and given regular exercise to stop them weeing on the furniture. Or something.

The down side is that I am stuck in a strange house not surrounded by my own things, or my cat. The upside is that most of my own things** in my own house need a jolly good tidy, and this is a perfect excuse for not doing that.

* And no, that's not a euphemism for anything dodgy.
** As opposed to communal things, most of those are tidy and hoovered and dusted and stuff. It's things what are solely mine that've been visited by the Messy Fairy. Who's a bit like the tooth fairy, only she doesn't take teeth away. Or leave you money under your pillow. So not a lot like the tooth fairy at all. More like the Mucal Fairie, who flits into your house in the dead of night with his buckets full of bogies to ram up your nose while you sleep. I mean, come on, how did you think all that yuck got up there?

Skink

2008-11-13T12:00:00.003Z

She Who Must Occasionally Take Some Time Off From Work So She Doesn't Go Retail On All Your Arses and I had a wee run in the car yesterday. Well, I'm 'between books'* and she's not at work so what the hell, we'll tootle around the NE of Scotland for a day like a pair of old farts out for a Sunday drive.

We've been meaning to go to Cullen for a while now, home of the famous Cullen Skink. Mmm, Cullen Skink, a lovely creamy soup of smoked haddock and potatoes, unctuous and full of fishy goodness. So we found a nice looking place, just off the main square, and settled down to order the Cullen Skink. Only the Cullen Skink, Cullen Stunk. How the hell could someone screw up the signature dish for a whole sodding town? The hotel chef managed to produce something that was weak, thin, full of undercooked boiled tatties, and had next to bugger-all fish in it. Grrrrrr... On my worst day, with a pair of angry badgers stapled to my gonads I could do better than that.

Then off to the wilds of Buckie to purchase many, many fishies for the eating thereof. If we can't get nice Cullen Skink in Cullen then I can damn well have it at Casa MacBride. Then, with a boot full of the aforementioned fishies we went on a magical mystery tour of small NE fishing villages.

Loads and loads of nice little locations for horrible, horrible crimes to be committed. I've already got a plan** for Book Number The Sixth, but I can definitely see at least one of them featuring in the not-too-distant.

But all this self-indulgent malarkey aside, I have good news: that interview I inflicted upon Adrian Hyland ages and ages ago has finally gone live on Shotsmag (to go along with the review). I think it's a fair bet that I'm not going to be taking over from Parkinson any time soon. Still, it's the thought that counts, right?

* Technically I'm actually 'between book', as I'm waiting on the line edit notes for Blind Eye to come in so I can go back to work on the thing. But if feels a lot more positive to say 'between books' as that way I can pretend I've actually achieved something.
** Well, as far as I usually have. Which isn't actually that much of a plan to be honest. It'll be more of a plan later, but for now it's sort of nebulous.

It am gone bye, bye...

2008-11-09T14:22:00.004Z

At long bloody last, Book Number The Fifth has finally wended it's hairy-arsed way down south to the great house of Harper, where it's probably hanging around the water cooler making off-colour remarks, or photocopying it's bum. You know the kind of thing.

And now I get to catch up on all the things I've been meaning to do for sodding months and never managed to get around to. Like chiselling out a channel in the solid brick walls of the lounge so I can install a set of lovely Billy bookcases and then fill them with books. BOOKS, I tells ya! Which is where the big slice of guilt comes in. I'm way behind with my reading. I mean seriously, badly, way behind. There's a stack of things that I've been asked to blurb and haven't even managed to crack the cover of. Which is very, very naughty, especially as some of them are ones I've supposed to be giving feedback on. So if you're waiting to hear back from me on something, well ... you know ... sorry, and stuff.

Bad beardy writist, back in your box.

I don't know what it is about Blind Eye (got to get used to giving Book Number The Fifth it's proper name, or it'll get al sulky), but I've been obsessing like an obsessive thing over it. For the whole sodding year. Obsessing to the point where I can't concentrate on anything else. I should probably get out more. Of course, I made a bunch of resolutions for 2008 and how many of them have I managed to stick to? None. Not a single bloody one. The only thing I came close to was the not saying 'yes' to everyone. And even then most of the time I was just putting them off till later in the year. *sigh*

I think I've probably got a week, two at the most before the dreaded Book Number The Fifth comes home to roost, and then all bets will be off as I go on a red-pen rampage. Die words! Die!

Just have to see how much reading I can get done by then...

America gets the squeams

2008-10-31T11:34:00.005Z

Now that FLESH HOUSE has finally hit the shelves in American bookstores, I've started to get emails about what a horrible book it is. America has turned squeamish all of a sudden. Which is ironic, given the actual content of the book. America is the world's largest consumer of meat*. Burgers, ribs, steaks, chickens, pork chops... Meat, meat, meat, meat meat. In Iowa, a veggie burger is a regular meat burger with vegetables on top, not a burger made of vegetables. A burger, made of vegetables? NO! Dang it, that's just wrong!

But then the emails started:

"I was so looking forward to reading the next one that I actually bought the hardback version. However, I feel utterly disappointed - all the bloodshed, detailed descriptions of cutting humans apart and eating them. I was looking for a good whodunnit and not a horror story."

Or this one:

"... this book is grotesque. to read about a killer who skins and fillets people is one thing - that is what made hannibal lecter such a great read. but to actually READ it happening ia another. i just do not find it necessary. i swear to you stuart, i am not a prude. i can make it through deaver's the bone collector fine with no problems. this just churned my stomach and i could not finish it."

Believe it or not, the on-screen nature of what happens in FLESH HOUSE is completely intentional. I did it on purpose. In all the other books, the violence is kept off screen, but with this one I wanted it to take centre stage. Right there, where you can see it.

Much though I hate 'themes', there's one that runs all the way through the book about people no longer really taking responsibility for the meat that they eat. It all comes pre-packaged from the supermarket, no one knows where it's originated from**.

And if you eat meat at all: beef, pork, or lamb, what the Flesher does to his victims is EXACTLY what happens to it. So in a way it becomes a moral question - why is it OK for someone else to do it to a cow on your behalf so you can eat it, but not OK to read about it happening to a fictional person? That just doesn't make any sense to me. The fictional people in the books are fictional. They feel no pain. They were never alive in the first place***.

Oh, and I should point out that I'm not a vegetarian - I eat a lot of meat, I just like to know where it comes from. I support my local butchers, I've been to an abattoir and seen cows go from "MOO", to "Mmm, that looks tasty..." I am at peace with my omnivorous nature - if cows, sheep, and pigs didn't want to be eaten, they shouldn't have evolved so tasty. Common sense, isn't it? What could be better than a juicy steak, caramelised on the outside and purple in the middle; a chicken thigh, roasted in the oven till the skin's all golden and crackly; a rack of ribs, the meat just falling off the bones; or a rack of lamb, all pink and gorgeous; a shoulder of mutton, slow roasted and meltingly tender...

PETA doesn't agree. According to a recent poster campaign, "Feeding kids meat is child abuse." Which has to be one of the most stupid, half-arsed things I've heard in a long time. Because you know what? Child abuse is a lot more serious than giving your kid a chicken fucking drumstick.

Anyway, yes... Emails. I finally got tired of typing the same reply, over and over again, about why the book is the way it is, and thought I'd just point people back here to this post instead.

Because deep down, I'm not just a meat eater, I'm lazy too.

* And no, that's not an euphemism.
** I'm pretty sure I read a report not that long ago that said something like 40% of ten-year-olds couldn't tell you what animal chicken drumsticks came from. Hello? Clue's in the name!
*** Which for me is quite an important difference. I don't like reading true crime stories, because I know the people involved are real, they suffered and left behind families that grieve for them. I don't find that entertaining.

Nephew

2008-10-26T08:17:00.002Z

This is Ash, Grendel's new cousin. We've not been in to see him yet as he's been ensconced in the neo-natal ward with a bit of a temperature, but they'll be letting him go home soon enough, to do battle with Shouty McShout-Shout and Thuggy McBastard.

I've no idea what his big sister Rowan will make of it all, though. I have a friend who was given into trouble by his mum for trying to colour in his brand-new baby brother's eyes with a magic marker. Not out of spite or anything, he just thought that blue would be a better colour for them.

She Who Must Be Consulted About Such Things and I are still in two minds about doing something similar. Not colouring someone's eyes in with a magic marker, getting a little addition to our household. The pitter patter of tiny feet. A baby sister for Grendel... only that's the problem. Little Miss has been the centre of the universe for four whole years now, and the thought of putting her nose out of joint gives us paws for thought*. I mean, what if they don't get on? What if they fight? What if Grendel breaks out the magic markers? It's not easy to do colouring in when you haven't got any thumbs. I suppose she could hook up some form of rudimentary sling using Velcro and duct tape, but it's still going to be difficult for her to hold onto the pen. And I don't like the thought of letting Grendel loose with a big roll of Velcro, who knows what kind of sticky-mouse-related madness we'd come home to?

Is it wrong that our lives are ruled by our cat?

* Aha, did you see what I did there? ... Yeah, well, I've still got completeandutterbastardingknackered syndrome, what do you expect?

In Which Our Bearded Protagonist Reveals That His Cat Has Got A New Cousin

2008-10-24T15:55:00.004+01:00

You may have missed the news yesterday, buried as it was at the end of the posty thing on Moments in Crime, but Googling Brother and Sister-In-Law Kim produced yet another relative we're going to have to buy Christmas presents for. At 11:00 Ash 'HugeBunchOfMiddleNamesTBD' MacBride was dragged out into the world, weighing a quarter ounce off of eight pounds. Which is nearly four bags of sugar. Hopefully that means more to you than it does to me -- I'm always a bit bemused when people tell me the weight of their newborn infants. I'd be more interested in knowing what kind of foul language their other halves used whilst giving birth, and if the gentleman in question is ever going to be allowed back in the marital bed again.

But apparently Mother and Baby are doing well. Which is nice.

And so far I'm five for five on the posting front - one more day to go, then I can take my completeandutterbastardingknackered syndrome and sleep for a week. But if my editor asks, I'm working hard, OK?

My God, it's full of meat...

2008-10-22T16:53:00.004+01:00

Yes, the Moments in Crime blogathon creaks on, like an arthritic knee, or a gate that needs oiled, or a small child in a microwave*. Today we're examining a deeply controversial, though vitally important, topic: meat!

And not just any meat, scary meat. Scary pink meat.

I can say no more about it!

* Just before it goes... BANG!

Tuesday's post is full of secrets

2008-10-21T13:48:00.002+01:00

Well, after yesterday's thought-provoking*post on Moments in Crime, today's is all about secret stuff what is being a secret. That makes two posts in two days! Oh yeah, who's your daddy?

* Which is obviously very different from 'comment provoking'.

As of the Monday

2008-10-20T03:47:00.004+01:00

As you might, or might not know, FLESH HOUSE has just come out in the US of A, and to commemorate the occasion I've been roped into blogging on the St. Martin's Press Moments In Crime site from Monday. Well, not so much 'roped in' as 'threatened with severe physical thumpings if I don't'. The worst bit is that I've been committed* to doing a post a day, so I can't just slack off like I usually do here.

And that means I've got to come up with things to ramble inanely about every single sodding day for almost a whole week. A WHOLE WEEK! Which is going to be a real broken-glass suppository. But needs must when someone's threatening to slam your sinful-man-parts in a desk drawer.

Groan...

But you can catch the first fun and frolics filled instalment here.

* Some people think I should have been committed years ago, but they're just jealous because the voices won't talk to them. Because they smell. Of poo. You hear that, jealous people? You smell all of poo, and you're made of poo, and when you talk, poo comes out! Oh hell yeah, I can do smack talk.

Important Bouchercon Update

2008-10-11T13:01:00.003+01:00

Been in Baltimore since Wednesday evening and you know what? I miss my cat.

...

Oh, yeah, and my wife. I miss her too... But mostly I miss my cat.

I haz a breakthrough, let me show you it

2008-10-07T10:49:00.003+01:00

I have a sad confession to make: I've never been 'papped' before. Now, just in case you're sitting there thinking that I've just said something very rude involving boobies, don't, OK? Honestly, you're just filth, filth, filth, aren't you? No, I mean I've never been caught by the paps* going into, out of, or even on top of anything. Up until Friday evening I had been a paparazzi-free zone.

And to be honest, it's a sodding freaky experience. Standing there like a lemon while a barrage of camera flash-guns go off in your face. FLASHFLASHFLASHFLASHFLASH... One bloke shouted, "Come on mate, give us a smile. Smile costs nuffink, you know?" Little did he know that I had purchased my smile from a very expensive boutique and I didn't want to wear the batteries out.

When I smile, I do it without teeth. I'm just not a toothy smiler. Some people can get away with flashing everything back to their molars, but I look like a serial killing squirrel whenever I try it. Probably not the best of images.

Anyway, thence to the star-studded bash.

Now the invite said gents were to turn up in 'suit or black tie'. Now the only 'black tie' think I have is my kilt. And while it's a mighty fine kilt, the damn thing weighs a ton and a half, and being made of three miles of tightly-woven wool, it's like wearing a microwave oven: everything between the hip and knee gets thoroughly cooked. That's why Scotsmen stand with legs-akimbo when they're in the full get up, it lets a little air circulate. You still end up with steamed vegetables though. So, not wanting cooked underparts, I was in my one and only black suit (no tie). Agent Phil had gone to the other extreme, and turned up in a bespoke tux made of bin-liners and electrical tape. Very fetching he looked too.

There then followed loads of mingling and catching up with people not seen since Harrogate and meeting some new ones too, like Michael Robotham who was also up for the Breakthrough. A very nice bloke, who spilled the beans about the book after the book about to come out. He didn't tell me the plot, just the location and even that sounds very, very cool. But that's the beauty of writing standalones: you can up sticks and set the next book anywhere you fancy.

So, after the schmoozing and a little boozing: the award ceremony. I've never been to one of these things before. I've seen them on the telly from time to time, but never really thought too much about it. Plus, as it was blatantly obvious that there was no way in Satan's frozen armpit I was going to have to do anything, I hadn't really given the whole thing too much thought. Oh idiot, thy name is Stuart.

First off, when they made the announcement I stood. Dithered. Not really sure if I should be going up onto the stage or not (ah ... the joys of being the first award** and not having anyone to copy). Then I had to wing a speech (didn't think I'd win, remember?), and in doing so forgot to thank Agent Phil. AGAIN! I screwed up in exactly the same way last years at the Daggers. And then I tried to leave the stage the wrong way, and had to be guided back the way we'd come like some sort of idiot.

Mind you, they edited that bit out when it went on the telly Monday, so I actually look as if I know what I'm doing. Ha! Oh, the television, it LIES to us!

Thank God.

* Steady, Tiger, what did we just finish talking about?
** Not counting Film Of The Year, which ended up as a skit involving two stuntmen fighting in hoodies, then bolting from the stage having nicked the award.

Rat

2008-10-02T19:12:00.003+01:00

In which our Bearded Protagonist reveals he's not ready for his close-up.

People have been complaining that there just haven't been enough photos of dead things on this blog recently. Apparently I've been slacking off on the mouse-related-torture-porn front, and that will not do. So, in the interests of remaining 'hardcore' and 'noir' here's Grendel T Kittenfish's most recent entry into Rodent Valhalla. A dirty big rat. Big. HUGE. It's difficult to get a real feeling of the scale from the photo, but let me tell you: this sodding rat is the size of a small Labrador.

It can't have been very tasty either, because she didn't eat it. Not so much as a nibble on it's scaly rope-like tail. I'd like to think that's because she wanted us to be impressed by the sheer scale of it's King-Kong-like proportions, but I'm betting it's more down to the taste. That or some inbuilt cat gastronomic radar that says, "If you eat this, you're going to end up barfing all over the rug. And not the fun kind of barfing either, not the hairball-squishy barfing that gets between people's toes, but full-on serious vomming. And possibly squirty poos as well. Which are never a good idea when you have to clean yourself with your own tongue."

Damn thing weighted a ton too.

In other news, I have to go get my photo taken again on Friday when I'm in London. It's not really something I'm looking forward to, but needs must. Well, HarperCollins tell me that musts are needy, and who am I to argue? Apparently the photo we're using on the books at the moment isn't scary enough - some people are barely traumatised at all!

So, inspired by The Nameless Horror, I went off and had a bash at taking my own photo:

Is it just me, or does it look as if I'm about to launch into a camper-than-biscuits rendition of Go West? Which is probably why HarperCollins want a professional to take the pic instead.

Now apart from the whole freakiness of having a complete stranger telling me, "That's it! Sexy! Give me more sexy! Make love to the camera*!" there's also the problem that I look pretty much like a sack of festering jobbies at the moment. It doesn't help that I've been sleeping pretty badly for about the last ... oh ... twelve years or so, but recently worrying about Book Number The Fifth has taken the whole unsleepifying thing to new levels of eye-bagging delight. Not to mention increased levels of grump and a strange craving for red meat. I mean, I wouldn't go so far as to try Kentucky-Frying Grendel's Rat... Well, maybe. You know, with a good dollop of Frank's Hot Sauce?

But then Grendel would look at me funny.

And why am I in London for this photographic thingie? It's because I'm going to be on the telly. Well, I say, "on the telly", what I really mean is that I'll be at something that's going to be televised. Which isn't quite the same thing. The only way I'll actually be seen in living rooms the length and longth of Britain is if they do a panning shot of the crowd. Or worse, one of those horrible shots where they show all the shortlisted people in close-up, as they find out that they've not won. Cue fixed rictus-grin** and "It's an honour just being nominated." type phrases.

Ah yes, for on Friday it's the ITV3 Crime Thriller Awards and I'm up for "Breakthrough Author of the Year". Mind you, according to teh interweb, the smart money's on Michael Robotham for SHATTER, which won the Ned Kelley Award for best Australian crime novel. Which is why I've been practising my death's head grimace. Again. Ah, poor old Stuart, always the bitter bridesmaid, never the knocked-up bride.

ITV3 say the breakthrough award "...celebrates a newer author whose work most deserves a wider audience."

Now, given that the book of mine up for this is BROKEN SKIN, with scenes of full-frontal nudity, masturbation, bondage, severe rectal trauma***, and John Rickards****, I get the feeling the judges will think that far from deserving a wider audience, my books probably need burned and the ashes piddled on. By angry donkeys. But it's an opportunity to grab conveyor-belt sushi with Agent Phil, then totter off to the awards full of Japanese beer and saki, for lots of wine and nibbles, safe in the knowledge that I won't have to make a speech.

Which sounds like a pretty good day to me.

They're also going to have a writers award for classic TV drama - AKA: people who have had their books turned into television series. If you want to get in on the act, you can stuff the ballot box to your hearts delight by clicking here*****. You can even vote up to 5 times! Bwahahahaha! The POWER!

* Which is a very silly instruction. And even if it were physically possible, I don't think the photographer would really want it back afterwards.
** You know the kind - where it looks as if you've just accidentally sat on a cactus, but don't want anyone to find out?
*** Actually, it does sound quite depraved when you put it like that, doesn't it?
**** Scenes featuring John Rickards, not scenes featuring John Rickards being rectally traumatised. That would be the stuff of nightmares and I've already done enough damage to his reputation as it is.
***** And yes, I am being partisan with my linkage. So?

Santa comes but once a year

2008-09-26T10:38:00.004+01:00

I was going to work out how many shopping days there were left until Christmas groans it's swollen belly full of festering festive frippery down our collective chimneys, but I can't be bothered. Ah yes, it's only September and already our bearded protagonist has got himself a nasty dose of the bah-humbugs.

My local supermarket already has two aisles dedicated to the gods of too much chocolate and other assorted tinselly folderol. And I know this looks like it's turning into an annual rant, as predictable as the seasons*, but... Actually, I'll just leave that one there, because I'm guessing that by the time September 2009 comes round I will be equally incensed that we've not had Halloween yet, but you can already buy bloody mince bloody pies.

I mean, who wants to eat mince pies in September? Actually, let's be honest here: who wants to eat them at all. EVER? Because, let's face it, they're basically just vile little nuggets of yuck.

There is, however, an up-side to all this down: Jelly Tots. You can finally buy big tubes of Jelly Tots again. Mmm... You have to love Jelly Tots, otherwise people look at you strangely and throw things. And you deserve it too, you freak. How could you not love Jelly Tots? That's like saying, "Kittens are really ugly, aren't they?" and then sexually assaulting a nun.

So the point of this rambling meander is that I've already started to stockpile these lovely buttony nipples of chewy fruitiness (as opposed to the aforementioned vile little nuggets of yuck), squirrelling them away like a ... a ... well, a squirrel, I suppose. Only without all that twitchy nose nonsense. I mean, who are they trying to kid? Like they wouldn't rip your throat out if you fell asleep under their tree. Oh yeah, they're cute, but I wouldn't trust one in my trouser pocket, that's all I'm saying.

Plus I've given She Who Must Buy Her Husband Nice Christmas Presents** a subtle hint as to what I'd like for Christmas. It went like this,

Me: "Bloody Christmas stuff's in the shops again."
SWM: "You're not going to go off on one about Mince Pies again, are you?"
Me: "Well, it's not natural, is it?"
SWM: "Every sodding year..."
Me: "But they've got Jelly Tots in too! Hurrah!" Holds up tube of Jelly Tots as a visual aid. "See?"
SWM: "Urgh."
Me: "What?"
SWM: "Horrible jelly sweeties. How can you eat them?"
Me: "Because it wouldn't be Christmas without Jelly Tots. Anyway, they're only a pound. A pound a tube! How cool is that?"
SWM: "You're mad."
Me: "Go and buy them! Buy them for my Christmas! Buy them now!" Shakes tube for emphasis. "This is my subtle Christmas hint!" Shake, shake, shake... etc.

See, that's how sensible grown-up adults conduct themselves.

* Or at least, as predictable as the seasons used to be. Nowadays, the only thing you can predict about them with any degree of accuracy is that the weather will be uniformly crap, with outbreaks of poop and 'just fuck off you raining BASTARD!'
** Just because I don't want the shops to be groaning with Christmas tat in September, it doesn't mean I don't want to traipse downstairs on Christmas morning, to find the tree groaning with presents for ME! I'm grumpy, not daft.

A tube full of class

2008-09-21T17:23:00.003+01:00

Having recently been to a seventies-themed dinner party, I have to wonder how the hell we all managed to survive into the eighties. And I'm not just talking about the horrific clothes that all seemed to come in a nasty shade of dysentery brown and septic orange ether - I'm talking about the food.

Everyone who turned up at the aforementioned historical re-enactment nosh-and-booze-up was required to bring along some authentic seventies food. Not from the actual seventies - that would be asking for food poisoning, there's only so long a packet of Vesta Curry will go past its sell-by-date after all, and nearly thirty years is probably pushing it - but everything had to be made from era-appropriate recipes.

She who must and I turned up bearing a tuna mousse, made in the traditional manner with Carnation evaporated milk, tinned tuna, and packet gelatine, all lovingly poured into a brass mould in the shape of a fish. Next up: strawberry milk jelly in a lumpy doughnut-ring-style Tupperware mould*. And last, but not least: Mexican mince, which is what passed for chilli back in the day (when beans were baked, not kidneyed).

Of these, the only thing thing that was even vaguely edible was the Mexican mince. The tuna mousse was like sucking on a fisherman's sock while he's still wearing it. And he's suffering from an infected, ingrowing toenail. And possibly some sort of fungal infection. The milk jelly split into a gritty layer of curdled white bits, and a wobbly layer of apologetic pink. But people could keep down the Mexican mince without going green and sprinting for the toilet.

Someone had gone to the trouble of buying a vintage Fanny Craddock** cookbook and lovingly crafted a traditional Boeuf Bourguignon, using some extremely good beef. But by the time Fanny got through with it, it might as well have been cavity wall insulation. How the hell did that woman become a mainstay of British culinary endeavour? She's a menace. Plus looked like a cross between Dame Barbara Cartland and a shaved Rottweiler. And her Boeuf Bourguignon tasted (and I use the following word in full knowledge of its inherent campness) ghastly.

But the superstar of the whole seventies food-fest was the person who squeezed Primula onto Ritz Crackers and topped them with a copule of prawns. Not big meaty king prawns, but those little pink commas you get in the freezer section of supermarkets. And they were great. So great in fact that She Who Must Be Spoiled With Exotic Comestible Treats and I bought a tube for ourselves the next week, and ate the whole thing in two days. Mmm, cheese you can squeeze...

I don't know why, but there's something inherently wrong about cheese that comes in a tube. And there's something equally wrong about cheese with bits of stuff added to it. But the chive-speckled Primula just works. It's savoury toothpaste for the soul.

The strange thing is, that all this horrible, claggy, vile food was the height of sophistication in 1970's Britain. Christ only knows why. In the aftermath of The Dinner Party That Time Forgot the Fanny Craddock cookbook was showered with vitriol, profanity, and finally lighter fluid. Then barbecued in full ceremonial fashion. Yes, it could have gone to a charity shop, but that would be a bit like leaving a cannister of smallpox lying about on the shelf, just waiting for someone to pick it up and ruin their life, reputation, and stomach lining.

* As you can probably tell, putting stuff in moulds was the height of sophistication in seventies Aberdeen. Oh yes, we knew how to live the wild life!
** The best Fanny Craddock quote has to come from her husband Johnnie, who was a bit of a dypso, and after she'd finished making doughnuts on live TV, turned to the camera and said to an eager nation, "And I hope all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny's." Which is a lot ruder in the UK than it is in the US. Even if that does sound like he's wishing everyone in America a dose of deep-fried arseholes.

Skills? I needs them...

2008-09-01T18:50:00.004+01:00

My email inbox collects its fair share of useless garbage. Great deals on strange pills that will apparently engorge my manhood to the size of a minibus; naked photos of Gloria Hunniford; offers from friendly Nigerian bank and government officials to help smuggle large sums of money out of the country; warnings that my NatWest on-line bank account is about to expire... even though I don't actually save with them. Things like that. But recently I found, nestling amongst the manure, a pearl. Something that will actually help me. Something that's been missing in my life, entitled:

FW: Is your skills about to expired?

Yes! They is about to expired! How could you tell? Is it the way I'm sitting?

WHAT A GREAT IDEA!

It must be - it comes with an exclamation mark! All the best ideas come with exclamation marks! Even a bad idea can be a good idea with enough of them!!! See?

We provide a concept that will allow anyone with sufficient work experience to obtain a fully verifiable University Degree.

Bachelors, Masters or even a Doctorate.

Wow - a concept that will allow anyone to get a verifiable University Degree? Even someone who titles emails 'Is your skills about to expired?' That's some University! Sign me up now for a Doctorate, that way I can ask ladies to take off their clothes, and if they complain, I can say, "Trust me, I'm a fully verifiable doctor!" With an exclamation mark at the end to make it seem like a good idea.

Now I have to confess that I'm not the most qualified of people. Last time I sat around a dinner table with friends it basically went: Person 1 - Degree, Person 2 - Degree, Person 3 - 4 Degrees and a Doctorate (show off), Me - bugger all. I do have a bronze certificate for swimming the 200 meters, but that doesn't really count in the world of academic Top Trumps.

But at least I'm not the least qualified person at Casa MacBride. Yes, She Who Must has a Degree in Scottish History, but Grendel never went to university, and doesn't even have a bronze certificate for swimming the 200 meters. Or any swimming certificate come to that. She's not very fond of water... But that wouldn't stop her taking a cycling proficiency test (or whatever wanky title the Government's changed it to nowadays), would it?

Mind you, she doesn't have a bike. And it's a bit difficult to reach the pedals when your legs are only nine inches long and covered with fur.

I'd always thought any chance of a degree had passed me by, like a transvestite on rollerblades, but I know of one writer who's doing a distance learning degree where your final dissertation is something like 30,000 words and can be from your next book. So it's not as if you've got that much extra writing to do. And if you go into it as a published author, you get to skip a lot of the coursework: like the drinking till you puke on Freshers' week, or having those long rambling conversations at three in the morning at a very boring party, where everyone's trying to come off as all intellectual on the off-chance someone will want to shag them.

Personally I'd like an honorary degree. That way the only work you have to do is turn up and be hit in the head with a mortar board. Of course, then you're only an honorary doctor, but that might still be enough to convince ladies to take their clothes off...

I am not an alien...

2008-08-23T11:28:00.002+01:00

Well, the event at Newtonhill last night seemed to go OK. The place was packed, everyone got tanked up on Library wine* and stappit-foo with canapés, and I got asked one of the weirdest questions I've ever had at any event.

Because this was the inaugural event of the first ever Portlethen Literary Arts Festival, someone thought it would be a good idea to have a photocall with some of the local school kids, followed by a quick Q&A, before crisps and juice, then a bit of buggering off before the main event started. Being as it would contain one or two naughty words.

Actually, the kid's questions were surprisingly good, including one I can't repeat here, because the person asking it was too shy to do so out loud and had to hand it to me on a slip of paper. I'd tell you what it said, but that would mean betraying writer/small-questioner confidentiality and I'd be defrocked if I did that**. But the best question of the night -- the very best question ever -- was from a little girl called Nicola and it wasn't even directed at me, it was directed at her mum, Susan. She looked at her mum, with big, serious eyes and said, "How do you know he's not an alien?"

And the best bit? Her mum didn't seem even remotely phased by this. Clearly Alien abduction is a frequent topic of conversation in their household. I suppose it would be a different way to deal with the death of a childhood pet, wouldn't it?

"Mummy? Mummy, I woke up this morning and Mr Hoppity isn't in his cage any more. Where is he?"
Mummy washes the shallow-grave dirt from her hands, thinks about it for a moment, then says, "Mr Hoppity was abducted by aliens, darling."
"Oh..." says the small child, bottom lip trembling for a moment, "Are they the same aliens that abducted Mr Fishy, Tiddles the cat, and Grandad?"
"Yes, darling. They collect them for experiments."
The small child gives a solemn nod. "Mr Hoppity isn't going to like all the anal probes, is he mummy?"
"Not as much as Grandad, no..."

But I digress. I've started doing something new in the events, since Birmingham, to go along with the usual rambling anecdotes and odd bit of reading (complete with silly voices, which I know some people think frightfully unprofessional, but I enjoy it, so what the hell), I now read out crappy reviews from Amazon. Which is actually a lot more fun than it sounds.

When I was down staying with the Guthries last weekend, Allan and I spent a happy Saturday morning drinking tea, reading out our worst Amazon one-star reviews, and laughing our arses off. Much to the bemusement of She Who Must Put Up With This Kind Of Thing From Time To Time, Donna, and Ed The Dog Of Nervousness.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go abduct someone's rabbit.

* Which is a lot more literary than normal wine.
** Assuming I was wearing a frock in the first place, which I haven't done for YEARS...

I am bin away, and stuff

2008-08-19T23:30:00.004+01:00

What ho, me old Johnny muckers, and other assorted piratical folderal. Yes, I'm back from my travails in the hinterland of literature, also known as the 'one date tour'.

Birmingham was pretty cool. Nice place. Or at least the bits of it I saw were. Mr Billingham* took me on a small walking tour of the town centre, where we saw the alleyway he once had a good fumble up**, and the famous Birmingham Selfriges. Which looks a bit like a massive whale someone's pebble-dashed in four-foot chrome Smarties. It's as if the architects all got together one afternoon, smoked WAY too many naughty things, then decided to hold a contest: who can come up with a building the Planning Department's never going to pass, dude... It's freaky, but kinda cool at the same time.

We also hit a couple of bookshops to do some walk-by signing. Of course, this being his home town, there were display stands groaning under the weight of IN THE DARK, Mr B's latest. But much to my surprise there were some of mine too! At one bookshop -- after we'd watched two men beating the crap out of each other in a dispute over who's prose was more incisive: Jordan or Dan Brown*** -- he had a big table, piled hight with his latest. "Would he like to sign them?" asks the manager. Of course he would.

Me?

No table for me. But there might be some copies lurking in the back. And there were - it was a veritable treasure trove of beardy goodness, hidden away at the rear of the shop, where no sane person would ever venture. But not being one to complain, I started to sign the things in situ. Well, in red pen, but it's almost the same thing. And while Mr Billingham was being flirted with at the front of the shop ("Oh, Mark, I love your shirt. Blue's my favourite colour") what was I doing? I was getting accosted by a security guard for defacing the store's books!

"Excuse me, sir, do you work here?"
"Er... no. I'm just signing stuff."
"I can see that, sir. What I want to know is WHY are you signing them?"

Luckily I proved my identity by opening the book and pointing at the author photograph. Look, is me! See? I is not wearing my glasses, but is me!

Eventually he agreed that the sexy man in the front of the paperbacks was indeed me, and he didn't need to put me in an arm-lock, or bash my head repeatedly off a display stand of NUMBER ONE LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCIES. Embarased, he hung about for five minutes, making awkward conversation. Secretly wishing I'd just been a shoplifter, as it would have made his life easier.

The event was good too - about a hundred and twenty people all waiting to see if I could get a bloody word in edgeways between M. Billingham and R.J. Elleroy****. And the bookshop even had copies of SAWBONES in! How cool is that?

We ended the evening with a traditional Birmingham curry, and thence to bed. Separate beds: I don't want you to think we were up to any naughty business. We're all married men, after all.

The next morning I was up at sparrow's fart to catch an obscenely early train to Edinburgh, where I was to liaise with She Who Must Be Treated To A Trip To The Festival Even If I Hadn't Been Invited This Year***** for a two day fest of takeaway, dining out, staying up till 4 in the morning talking toot, and going to see things with the Guthries. And very nice it was too.

Not to be outdone by Mr Billingham, Allan Guthrie ESQ. took me on a wee tour of his own on the Saturday night. We saw a drug deal, a man pulled over for drink driving, Edinburgh's 'cruising' central, a male prostitute failing to negotiate a sticky transaction, and the Post Office that features in TWO WAY SPLIT. How can you top that?

Of course, by the time we got home to Casa MacBride I looked like a sockpuppet that had been filled with custard, then beaten against the side of a building by a rabid nun, but that's less than unusual these days.

And to make matters even better, I'll be getting up at OH DEAR JESUS O'CLOCK tomorrow morning so I can pontificate****** over the morning papers on Original FM.

You'll forgive me if I accidentally swear like a trouper, won't you?

* He likes me to call him that, because he's threatened by my bearded sexy Scottishness.
** I'm sworn to secrecy.
*** The whole thing was carried out to the theme tune of 'Leave it, Daren, he's not worth it!'
**** The answer being: barely.
***** Not that I'm bitter. Oh no. Not bitter at all... Not in the LEAST bit bloody bitter!
****** Pronounced: RANT!!!

It am been a while

2008-08-12T19:45:00.002+01:00

Yes, I know I've been very indolent of late, but I blame that on stuff. Stuff, and THINGS. Yes, STUFF and THINGS - not my fault at all, I mean, I'm not God, am I?*

But anyway, I was going to post about a number of topics close to my bile ducts, but instead I decided to try and get some work done on Book Number The Fifth - or BLIND EYE to give the thing its official title. Yup. So now we go: COLD GRANITE, DYING LIGHT, BROKEN SKIN, FLESH HOUSE, BLIND EYE. God knows what two-word title we'll end up with for Book Number The Sixth, but I know it's probably going to be a vast pain in my fuzzy backside to come up with.

And speaking of fuzzy things, I have to say the following to the manufacturers of that stuff you're supposed to pipette onto the back of your cat's head: "BOLLOCKS!" And then I'd like to throw in some fairly explicit hand gestures, involving two, or fewer fingers.

Yes, I'm sure that splodging foul-smelling goop onto the back of your pet's head is a great idea, but not when you have a Maincoon cat. No, you see a Maincoon cat has two layers of fur: an outer hairy fur, and an inner fluffy fur. So what happens is that instead of 'absorbing into the skin' the foul-smelling goop is sooked up by the hair and in about fifteen minutes your cat resembles a punk-rocker with laxative in his hair. Not the best of looks, I think you'll agree.

You know, there was a point to this post, but I can't remember what it was. Probably something about nipples... Anyway, I suppose I should also point your deviant things towards Thursday in Birmingham, where I'm going to be doing a thing with the ever lovely Mr M Billingham, and his fellow Brummue, Mr RJ Ellory (of Richard and Judy fame, nonetheless) on Thursday the 14th at 18:30.

I've been promised Dancing Girls, but I'm not sure if I'll share them or not. Mine, you hear? ALL MINE!!!

But in the meantime, here is a link to teh best wibsit on teh intraweb...

Although I do have a beard, and have been known to slack off on a Sunday (not often though)...

I suppose...

2008-07-30T14:56:00.002+01:00

It feels weird posting about pretty much anything at the moment, but I suppose I should point your naughty clickity mice at the following: Mark Lawson's special Front Row programme from the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival. I think this is the last day you can listen to it, and I've avoided putting up a link because although I haven't listened to it, I'm sure I come across like a complete arse-biscuit.

I usually do. I'm on the sofa with Simon Kernik, Chelsea Cain, and the inimitable Zoë Sharp. All of whom will sound as if they know what they're doing. While I will sound as if I've been sniffing glue whilst sexually molesting a 'Tickle-Me-Elmo'.

But I've been threatened with violence of a violent nature if I don't do the linking thing. If you're careful you can probably stick your fingers in your ears and go 'LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA!' whenever I start to talk. Plus there are lots of other clever people on the show, who aren't... you know... thick. Like highlights from the Balloon Game and some interviews.

Just remember to ignore everything and anything I say.

Bad news

2008-07-28T18:42:00.002+01:00

Sometimes the world just likes to remind you it can be a random, fucking horrible place.

Today was one of those days.

Or maybe not...

2008-07-27T13:55:00.004+01:00

I've been getting emails from people saying that SAWBONES is more difficult to get hold of than a greasy weasel's wedding tackle when it's dark and you're only wearing a rubber French maid's outfit.

OK, so only one person claimed to be wearing a rubber French maid's outfit at the time (and didn't explain WHY they wanted to clutch the aforementioned weasel's unmentionables, or how it had got all greasy in the first place), but we're nothing if not inclusive here at Casa Del Halflead. I myself have a rubbery cover on my iPod, so who am I to cast aspersions on anyone wanting to get done up as a wipe-clean domestic?

Anyway, the gist is that Amazon is now saying it's out of stock and some bookshops are saying the publication date's been put back. I know that last one's not true, because I've seen it for sale in my local Waterstones. So it does exist - I've not just been making this whole thing up...

Honest.

I've emailed the publishers so hopefully I'll have some sort of clue what's going on soon. And if it's in any way interesting (or it gets me out of having to think up a proper post) I'll stick it up here.

In the meantime, how come I can't buy a decent smartphone, or take-home sushi? I went into town yesterday with the express purpose of coming back with both. And managed neither. No one wants to sell me a smartphone unless I want three million minutes of talk time and half a gazillion texts per month, and am prepared to pay the GDP of a small South American country for the privilege. Right now I go through about £20.00 of air time in two and a half months. WHY would I possibly suddenly need to send a gazillion text messages? And yes, fine, it does internet connection stuff, but you know what? I have that there interweb stuff at home. Where I spend about 90% of my time. If I want to check my email, I'll go through to the study, thank you very much. The only time I'd actually need access through any sort of phone-flavoured thing would be when I'm away. And as that only happens once or twice a year, I'm not prepared to mortgage my cat to pay for it. That would be profligate and naughty. And possibly a bit illegal -- I've got no idea what the banking code says about cat-related collateral, but I guess they wouldn't be too happy about the kind of deposit she'd make.

And the sushi situation wasn't much better. Chef Jang -- who has a little stall in the market by the green -- was on holiday, so we couldn't get any sushi to take home with us. Boo! Hiss! People should not be taking holidays when I have a yen for raw fish and sticky rice! That's not supposed to be the way the world works.

I bet Brad Pitt never has these problems.

Goddamnit!

Publicate me, baby...

2008-07-23T14:40:00.003+01:00

Publicate me like I've never been publicated before! Today is something fo a first for me - never before have I had two books out in the same year. And it's kinda cool... OK, so it's not exactly a feeling I'm going to get used to, given how bloody slow I seem to be writing at the moment, but for this year and next I'm going to be a bifurcated write-ist. Not in any physical sense you understand, just a metaphorical one. After all, we've all seen things we'd rather not on the interweb, and I really don't want to go there.

Anyhow, yesterday was the day that SAWBONES officially hit the bookshelves, but I only got my copies this morning. And they're very cool - especially the cover. The only weird thing is the thickness. From the front they look like a regular book, but from the side they've been on a diet. Having been prone to producing doorstopperish 150,000 word monsters, the sight of a scant 18,300 is pretty damn freaky.

It'll be interesting to see the reaction to it start coming in (as of today it's sitting at #49 in Amazon's Mystery chart), but no one's posted a hatchet-job review yet, so that could well change. It's a bit like taking delivery of a brand new car, and waiting for some sock-sucking cock-wad to scratch the paintwork, or bash into it with their shopping trolley, or ding the wing as they open the door of the rusty piece of crap they're long past caring about. You know the sort of people I mean.

Maybe I should just log into Amazon and post a stinker myself? Get the waiting over and done with?

Or maybe I should just knuckle down and get some bloody work done on the second draft of Book Number The Fifth? So far I seem to have been doing everything possible to avoid it.

Finger out, Stuart. Finger out.

Anyway, while my finger is still well and truly entrenched, I shall point one of my other digits to the calender and say, "See that day there? ... No, not that one, I'm pointing at Saturday the 2nd of August. ... Yes, there, now you've got it. Well, I'm going to be at the Union Bridge branch of Waterstones signing copies of SAWBONES... What? ... Oh, yeah, I'll probably be signing other things too. I'm not proud. ... Boobies? Well I don't know about that, but I dare say I could try. ... No, my pen isn't normally that cold. ... Yeah, well, anyway, like I was saying: Watersones, Union Bridge, Aberdeen Saturday the 2nd at 12:30. Be there, or be somewhere else! Like in the pub."

Right, back to work!

Harrogate-arama

2008-07-15T17:09:00.002+01:00

Hurrah: it's Harrogate time again! Those magical 4 days in summer that reek of beer-fuelled crime-writing-related shenanigans. What could be more fun? And this time I'm determined to see Agent Phil perform his now legendary monkey impersonation. Yes, he's small, but he's wiry. I can't believe I missed it last year - that's what I get for being sensible and going to bed before three in the morning.

Well, I am getting on a bit. Mind you, I've been successfully podging up for most of the year, putting on that extra few layers of fat to counteract all that alcohol... Or I could just, you know... go tee-total for the duration. Which sounds like a radical departure from festival etiquette, but both Allan 'mine's a fruit juice' Guthrie and Zoë 'Ooh, I'd kill for a cup of coffee' Sharp* manage it on a regular basis. And they don't come across as soberer-than-thou temperance types either. Damn their un-bloodshot eyes!

And it's not as if I'm going to have much opportunity to get absolutely weaseled, I've got the TOPCNoTY presentation to go to on the Thursday night, and as I'll be on the stage I probably shouldn't be roaring drunk. Then on the Friday night I'm getting thrown out of a balloon, so again sobriety will be the order of the day. So any heathenistic excess will have to take place on the Saturday night. My panel gets out at half four and I'm free as a free thing after that. Woo-hoo!

After all there's no point wasting all this weight I've put on.

And as an extra special treat to myself, whenever anyone asks me to be in their team for the Saturday night pub quiz I'm going to fake a dose of industrial-grade haemorrhoids and slope off to the bar instead. Well, maybe not haemorrhoids, that kind of thing is likely to put off any groupies. Maybe I'll fake something more sophisticated, like gastric flu? Or leprosy?

Or I could just admit that I'd rather creosote Gordon Brown's backside with my toothbrush - and then brush my teeth with it - than sit through another bloody pub quiz?** But personally I'm leaning towards the leprosy.

* And the scary thing is, she probably could - and all she'd need would be a teaspoon and a little sachet of castor sugar.
** I should point out that I know some perfectly nice people who actually enjoy a pub quiz. OK, so there's clearly something deeply wrong with them, psychologically speaking, but you know... each to their own.

Corned beef and Sci-Fi

2008-07-04T15:46:00.004+01:00

As you know I've been stuck in the mud a little of late. Stuck like a sticky stick that someone's stuck steeply into sticky mud. This was mostly because I was suffering from clinical PERE* in addition to my rather severe bouts of CRSD**. Taken in isolation these conditions can be bad enough, but together they lead to much moping and sighing and being a general pain in the arse... By which I mean I was being a pain in the arse, not that my arse had a pain in it. Let's face it, I know we've known each other for a while now, but there are some things that are too personal for the interweb. But don't worry, my arse is fine. Fuzzy, but fine.

Anyway, now that I've got my first-draft edit notes back I can unstick myself. Lubricate myself free of the mire and forge onwards... blah, blah, blah. In an attempt to do this culinarily I decided to have another bash at something that's been a personal bugbear for years: CORNED BEEF. I don't like corned beef. I've never liked corned beef. It's all greasy and fatty and the fact it looks like someone's just haemorrhaged all over a piece of cork tiling doesn't help. But She Who Must Eat Some Bloody Horrible Things likes it, so I thought I'd get some for my lunch today. Not just any old corned yuck from a can either, this was top-notch gourmet corned beef from a butcher of some local renown.

And you know what?

...

It was bloody horrible.

Still, Agent Phil*** did have some good news for me - the cheque from HarperCollins has cleared. Not a Logan check, oh no. This is a cheque of an altogether different stripe. This is a cheque from their Voyager imprint. This is a Science Fiction cheque. HALFHEAD**** was the third book I'd ever written, and it was the one HC were thinking about when I delivered the first draft of COLD GRANITE all those years ago. So I think it's been gestating for about five or six years down there in Hammersmith, and finally it's ready to break it's waters... you know what, I'm not going to go too far down the birthing analogy, because it's going to get messy. And no one really wants to read about piles, do they?

Right, so, HALFHEAD (for which this very blog is named) is a near future thrillery-type thing with essence of police procedural thrown in. No spaceships. No aliens. Just good old-fashioned serial killers, conspiracies, and onomatopoeic weapons. And as an aside, I always think it's a bit odd that if you write a crime novel set in 1532 it's HISTORICAL CRIME FICTION, which is serious and read by serious folks what know lots of stuff. But if you write the same story set twenty years from now it's SCIENCE FICTION! With an exclamation mark. And everyone knows that SCIENCE FICTION! with an exclamation mark is only read by teenagers with more acne than skin and a serious fixation with Seven Of Nine's breasts. Allegedly. It'll be interesting to see if people who like the Logan books will be willing to take a punt on it, even if they risk being pointed at if they wander into that section of the bookshop and *gasp* buy one of the books! I hope they will... Otherwise HarperCollins might ask for their money back, and Grendel needs new shoes.

The current plan is that HALFHEAD will hit the shelves as a trade paperback sometime next Christmas-ish, and then I'll get to go to conventions where people dress up as robots and hit each other with sticks. Which will be cool. That's what's missing from Crime Writing Festivals, if you ask me: not enough people dressed up as robots.

The stuff with sticks I can take or leave.

* Pre-Edit-Related Ennui is a condition caused by delivering the first (or any other) draft of a book and then hanging about waiting for your editor(s)/agent/reader(s) to get back to you on whether or not it's a festering mound of politicians' poop.
** Cat-Related Sleep Disorder - most cat owners suffer from this from time to time, especially if their cat wants to go out at half four in the morning, but not until it's been fed cat sweeties and told how pretty it is. It can also be caused by the aforementioned cat deciding that she wants to have a quick kip on her owners lap when said owner is just about to get up from slobbing in front of the telly to go to bed. This is related to a subcondition - CRBD (Cat-Related Bladder Distress) caused when a cat does the same thing when the owner wants to go to the loo to get rid of a bottle and a half of red wine.
*** Who allegedly was well behaved at the HarperCollins Summer Party (that I didn't go to). I can only assume that Editor Sarah is right when she says that I lead him astray. And as I missed the party, I'll have to work twice as hard on the astray leading part of my job when Harrogate comes around.
**** I have no idea if we'll get to call it that, but I can't face another round of 'make up the title' right now. Just the thought brings me out in hives.

Me and the Archers, we're like that...

2008-07-01T08:12:00.003+01:00

Well, today is the day of the big party - the one with the fluorescent green plastic invite - and am I down in London, preparing for a celeb-studded boozeathon? No, I'm at home looking out at a crappy Tuesday morning full of rain and cold. Yes, it's summer in Aberdeenshire...

I got another 'talking to' last week about my rendition of the glorious Aberdeen weather at a book group in town. They invited me along to talk about Book Number the Fourth and for once everyone had actually read the damn thing. Now, you might think that this was a given, yes? If you're a book group and you've got a book to read, and you've invited the poor sod who actually wrote the thing, you'd think people would get off their backsides and actually put in the effort to read it. Well, you'd be wrong. I think in the whole time I've been doing this, it was only the second time everyone in attendance had actually bothered.

And it really makes a huge difference: being able to talk about the whole thing without having to be all coy about plot twists.

That said, the evening didn't exactly get off to a flying start. When I turned up there were about 19 members of the Posh Club* present, and I squeezed in on the edge of the group. Everyone had a little badge with their name on and a round sticky label. Some of the stickers were red, some green, some yellow. But the name badge of the person sitting next to me was naked. No sticker. Just her name. I smiled and pointed at her absence of round sticky thing. "Why haven't you got a sticker?" I asked, "Have you been naughty?"
She looked at me. "I wanted one with an upside-down smile on it. They didn't have any."
"Oh..." And that was when I realised the significance of the stickers - it was a traffic light thing. "Didn't like the book then?"
"I hated it."
Which is always a good start to any event, don't you think?

Still, give her her due, she didn't seem to hold it against me for more than about twenty minutes. To be honest, I actually quite like it when you get a couple of people who really don't like the book in a book group. Yes, it'd be nice if everyone loved it to bits, but in a real world that's never going to happen. And if someone really hates the book they're not usually shy about letting the rest of the group know, whereas someone who just didn't care for it is much more likely to keep their mouths shut, not wanting to cause offence. I'd much rather have a good debate on what's going on than an hour of people blowing smoke up my delicately fuzzy behind.

Apart from anything else, when someone's complaining about things it makes the group members who loved the book wade in with why, and then you get both sides of the argument. It brings out a lot of things I wouldn't have thought about otherwise. Which makes for a much more interesting life.

Of course the problem with admitting this, is that people suddenly start thinking I want them to hate the book. Or at least pretend to. I don't. It's not the same if you don't really mean it: I don't want your pity hatred. Actually, what I want is a cup of tea. And maybe a nice biscuit.

Anyway, it was a good evening - they were a very nice bunch of ladies (with one poor bloke sandwiched in at the back**). They bought me a pint and offered me mini sausage rolls. What red-blooded man can resist when plied with beer and pastry-wrapped pig byproducts? And I even managed to escape before the pub quiz started (because I bloody loathe pub quizzes). Result!

Mind you, none of this explains the title to this meandering post. The Archers and I are now buddies of a bosom-like nature, nestling as we do in the warm cleavage of BBC Radio Four. I was asked to write a short story as part of the Afternoon Reading series to commemorate 100 years of people using the acronym S.O.S to indicate that things have gone seriously poop-shaped. THE FISHWIFE'S LAMENT is a wholesome tale of dementia, fish factories, and Strawberry Mivis, and it goes out on Thursday 3rd of July at 15:30. It's also going to be available on the website for about a week afterwards as well.

In case you're wondering, it's not me reading it. You can tell, because I'm a man and the person reading the story isn't. I suppose I could have shut my privates in the door to create the necessary change in pitch, but I didn't really fancy the resulting bruised genitals and cowboy walk it would cause.

There are limits how much I'll suffer for my art***, you know.

* If you follow the linky link, you'll see a photo of me and my pint (I'm the fat beardy bloke in the middle, and my pint's in the glassy thing in my hand), with Posh Club founder: Suzanne on the right of the pic, and the lady who wanted an upside down smiley sticker on the left.
** For some reason, there's usually a maximum of one man in any given book group. Maybe he's there because he's been dragged along by his wife/girlfriend, because she thinks they should do things together not involving socks or lubricant. Or maybe he's hoping that it won't just be the books' covers he's slipping between - if you want to meet ladies, a book group's a pretty good place to do it.
*** Using the word 'art' in it's loosest possible sense.

Bloody Women

2008-06-27T09:26:00.004+01:00

I should point out that this isn't some sort of misogynistic rant, but the title of the panel I'm moderating at this year's Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, or 'Harrogate' as it is more colloquially known. According to the programme it's about:

Saturday 19 July
3.30 - 4.30pm

Is it true that women writers can get away with writing more explicitly about violence, particularly of a sexual nature, than their male counterparts? If so, why is this? Simon Beckett and Mark Billingham argue the case against Val McDermid and Chelsea Cain, whilst one of the wittiest Aberdonians of them all, Stuart MacBride, keeps order.

Ah yes, a contentious can of worms that wriggle in a contentious manner of wriggliness. Of course as moderator I'm going to have to be gender-neutral -- not easy when you're as manly and virile as I obviously am, you know ... with the beard and everything -- and try to keep the fisticuffs to a bare minimum. Which is going to be interesting given that none of the participants are exactly shrinking violets. Well, I've never met Chelsea Cain, or Simon Beckett, but I'm assuming they'll give Val and Mark a run for their money in the boisterous department.

I should point out, by the way, that I'm not responsible for that 'while one of the wittiest Aberdonians of them all, keeps order' line in the blurb. I tried to get them to change it to something less cringeworthy, but they refused to follow my suggestion of 'while world-renowned, bearded SEX-GOD: Stuart MacBride (blessed be his saintly man bits), keeps order.' Some people, eh?

Anyway, as I am a conscientious moderator, and couldn't think of a reasonable excuse at short notice that would get me out of having to be the responsible adult for sixty minutes, I've asked Mark, Val, Simon, and Chelsea to tell me what's the most violent thing they've ever written and what's the most violent thing they've ever read.

For me, the most explicitly violent thing I've written has to be the 'tin bath' sequence in FLESH HOUSE, though a scene I did in an earlier, unpublished* book where someone is forced to eat a human eyeball comes pretty close. As to the most violent thing I've ever read... Hmm... I think you'd have to go a long way to beat Val's 'Judas Chair' scene from THE MERMAIDS SINGING, though Simon Kernick has made several valiant stabs at it. At least as far as crime fiction goes.

I can't decide if James Herbert's THE RATS counts or not, after all it's not people doing the extreme violence in this one, it's ... well, rats. Clue's in the title of the book. I remember reading THE RATS on a school trip to see Roman stuff in Chester**, I was about 11 at the time*** and loved that kind of stuff. Maybe that's why FLESH HOUSE ended up the way it did, a sort of homage to the James Herbert and Stephen King books I used to read as a wee lad?

Anyway, reminiscences aside, I'm interested to see what other people think -- anyone out there want to share their most violent booky moments?

* And pretty much unpublishable
** At least I think it was Chester, my memory is not the most shiny spoon in the cutlery drawer.
*** Actually that's just a random guess, due to the aforementioned crapulant nature of my memory.

Nipples

2008-06-18T14:54:00.003+01:00

That ribald denizen of the audio-based blogosphere, Angie Johnson-Schmit has subjected me to her evil podcast of doom - In For Questioning. It sounds as if I'm in the middle of drowning in a bath full of custard, while having a rant about Rankin-based media cock-weaselry, and seeing how often I can say the word 'nipple!'

Not to mention insulting Allan Guthrie, reciting a wee verse from a potential new Skeleton Bob story (if I ever get around to finishing it) SKELETON BOB AND THE BIG YELLOW PLUKE!, and I also talk about naughty nakedness of the 'below the ankle' variety. Sinful.

One word of warning though: Angie promised me she wouldn't put any reggae on the soundtrack, but she lied. SHE LIED!!!

Double Happiness Wholesale Ltd.

2008-06-09T18:17:00.005+01:00

To start with I was going to post a long an introspective ramble about tone and pace and the nature of the Logan McRae books, and then I thought, sod it: no one wants to read about that. And then I thought, bugger off, it's my blog, I'll post about what I bloody well like! What's the point in having a blog if you can't splurge on a self-indulgent introspective ramble from time to time? And then I wondered why I kept a blog at all. And then I remembered the whole point was so I could poke fun at John Rickards, and I hardly ever do that any more. Which is strange when you think about what an easy target he is, what with being short and smelling of whelks the whole time... Then I thought I'd berate you all for not wishing Grendel a happy birthday when she turned 4 on Sunday. And then I realised I'd kind of lost the whole chain of though and went for a cup of tea instead. And by the time I got back I'd forgotten what I was going to post about in the first place.

So then I thought I'd write an Ian-Rankin-themed rant. Not about Mr Rankin, or even at him, but about the media's habitual obsession with trying to find a replacement for the poor sod. But I couldn't be bothered as it was going to involve getting all riled up and indignant and calling people cock-weasels. Which probably wasn't going to be a good career move.

So then I thought I'd post a response to the only review to spot the fact that FLESH HOUSE owes a lot to the horror genre (possibly because I used to read a fair bit of it when I was little), but that just led back to the whole 'who cares what you think' feedback loop of shouting at the keyboard.

As a result of all this internal dialogue and internal struggle, I have decided instead to post about the Trendy Seaweed Rice Snack I bought for She Who Must Be Indulged On The Date Of Her Getting Hitched To Me Who Is A Bearded Sex God And Dead Good With Words And Stuff.

Yes, I pushed the boat out and bought her a bag of Trendy Seaweed Rice Snack (Teriyaki Seasoning Flavoured). According to the bag "You can enjoy not only the delight delicious flavour, but also the greatness of natural mineral benefits from the sea in every single bite." What more could you ask for? Seriously, when did you last eat something with a delight delicious flavour?

OK, so they look a little bit like deep-fried worms, but they're trendy - it says so on the label and I know that's got to be true, because they're 'manufactured and distributed by: Friendship Co. Ltd.' of Bangkok. The Friendship Co. Ltd. wouldn't lie to us, so it has to be true. Not only that, this bag of trendy delight deliciousness was imported by none other than 'Double Happiness Wholesale Ltd.'

How cool is that? Deep-fried-worm-looking rice snacks that are delight delicious, made by Friendship Co. Ltd. and imported by Double Happiness Wholesale Ltd. how could we possibly go wrong?

There's something deeply satisfying about a company that calls itself Double Happiness Wholesale Ltd. -- clearly they're head and shoulders above those bunch of shits at Single Happiness Wholesale Ltd. clue's in the name, isn't it? It's a shame that this isn't a trend we'll see catching on over here, naming companies in as chummy and cuddly a manner as possible. BP could change it's name to 'Big Fluffy Huggy Bunny Love Company Plc.' Who wouldn't want to buy petroleum-derivatives from them? If the Inland Revenue became 'Triple Cuddly Best Friends Inc.' we'd all be falling over ourselves to pay our taxes, and we'd be doing it with a smile of cuddly-best-friendliness on our faces. Hell yeah! Someone tell the Chancellor of the Exchequer that all his troubles are over (assuming he manages to do something about his eyebrows, possibly involving a Black And Decker hedge trimmer).

I wonder if this is an Eastern phenomenon -- calling your corporation nice things -- or is there a 'Complete And Utter Bastard Foods Corporation' just down the road from the Friendship Co. Ltd headquarters?

I know which one I'd rather work for.

Things ate my trousers

2008-06-05T15:59:00.002+01:00

It's a day of double goodness today. Not chocolatey goodness, as that's not really all that good. And a bit sticky. And lets face it, when it gets hot, chocolatey goodness tends to melt and look as if someone's had a bottom-related accident. So let's call it 'pickled-oniony goodness' instead: they don't melt, they smell nice, and if you draw on a cornea and retina, you can make small children think they're eating eyeballs. Which is always fun. Well until their parents find out. Then it's all recriminations, shouting, and running away.

So, I hear you ask, what's the reason for this declaration of double pickled-oniony goodness?

Reason Number The First is that Mr James Tiberious Oswald has been shortlisted for the CWA's Debut Dagger for the second time in a row this year. Hurrah! Everyone at Casa MacBride has their fingers crossed for him. Except for Grendel, as this would interfere with her master plan for world domination. Which, at the moment, seems to involve pouncing on as many butterflies as possible. Plus she's a cat, and doesn't really grasp the concept of literary awards.

Reason Number The Second is that today marks the anniversary of when Mr Allan Guthrie's naked posterior first appeared from his mother's womb and was briskly spanked by a man in a smock. Which is an image all of us are going to treasure. Obviously I can't comment on any further incidences of smocked men spanking Allan's backside, it would be unethical of me. But we've all seen the pictures.

I suppose you could also lump into that a Reason Number The Third: Crime Scene Scotland, in the person of Russel 'Badger Bait' McLean, has been so kind as to cast his eye over both FLESH HOUSE and SAWBONES. Which is nice, because poor old FLESH HOUSE hasn't been getting much in the way of review attention. It sits on the shelves, lonely and forlorn, weeping into a snotty hanky and making the occasional farty noise. I think this now brings the number of official reviews for the thing up to a dizzying 2, including the one in the Guardian by the lovely Laura Wilson: "Anyone writing with the dual aim of fist-in-mouth shockery and humour needs to work bloody hard, and MacBride does, showing us just how much fun body parts can be."

Oh, and I also got an invite to a party today. Not sure if I'll go yet, but it's on a funky bit of fluorescent plastic. It's hard to say no to fluorescent plastic...

What Next?

2008-06-03T14:46:00.003+01:00

I've been doing a lot of ranting lately. Angry, angry ranting that involves shouting at the television, or at the radio, or at all those slack-jawed halfwit gitbags who are somehow allowed in charge of automobiles, even though they clearly aren't qualified to pick their own noses without impaling their brains on a questing fingernail.

Seriously, if you're doing 30mph in a 60 zone, you should maybe rethink the whole driving-while-fast-asleep thing. And see those stick things on either side of your steering wheel? One of them makes a light on the outside of your car go all blinky, so people can tell where the hell you think you're going. What, did your driving licence come free with a packet of Cornflakes?

But I digress.

For some reason the quantity, quality, and all round bitterness of my rants has increased dramatically since I handed Book Number The Fifth over to my publisher. I blame post-book-delivery blues, and politicians. Slimy sods. Every time I see one on the telly it feels like taking a bath in a tub full of phlegm.

But I'm digressing again.

One of the things that's been weighing heavily on the old bearded noggin this past week is the question of what I'm going to do next. And not just in the short term - that's going to involve making a cup of tea - but in the longer term. My current contract with HarperCollins ends with Book Number The Sixth (a plot for which is already fermenting at the back of my head, like a dead sheep in a septic tank), and that's just one book away. Or it will be if I survive the second draft of Book Number The Fifth.

What to do after that?

I've been thinking about taking up plumbing. It pays pretty well and the hours aren't too bad. Yes, you occasionally end up knee-deep in jobbies, but at least it isn't normally your fault. And it's someone else's jobbies too... Hmm... does that make it better or worse? Neither would be pleasant, but at least you'd know where your own ones had been...

But I'm doing that digressing thing again.

If I do decide that there's a future in this writing thing, what will I write? More Logan books? I know that anyone who writes a crime novel set in Scotland is eventually going to be called 'the next Ian Rankin', but could I really spend 20 years writing about the same character? I think I'd probably go mad. Then I wouldn't just be ranting at politicians when they come on the telly, I'd be investing in a cricket bat studded with six-inch rusty nails and paying the bastards a visit. "Look what you've done to the National Health Service!" WHAP, WHAP, WHAP!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
"Stop claiming rent-boys as a business expense!" WHAP, WHAP, WHAP!
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, Jesus, please stop hitting me with that!"
"Try giving a straight answer when you're asked a question on telly!" WHAP, WHAP, WHAP!

I'm kinda in that sort of mood.

My Forgotten Book(s)

2008-05-30T13:13:00.004+01:00

Patti Abbott, doyenne of all things that need that kind of thing, has been asking strange men (and women) to post about books that you might have overlooked in your rush to snap up the latest James Patterson. *cough*

The idea is to unearth shining jewels from the dungheap of life, that all our souls may be enriched with shiny goodness. Just make sure you wash them first, otherwise there may be a lingering aroma that will spoil your reading pleasure.

Anyway, as I traditionally don't pay too much attention to the rules I'm going to indulge myself a little* and post about not one book, but two.

The first is SHOOTING DR. JACK by Norman Green. I discovered it in a crappy bookshop in San Francisco back in 2004 - the kind of place where it looks as if they've just rented out a big empty room for the week, stuffed it full of cheap tables and then heaped those tables with random titles in no particular genre or alphabetical order. The sort of place where they're probably going to be selling knocked-off electrical items next Wednesday. And the person operating the till has a face full of spots and a mouth full of gum. And they look at you as if to say, "You're buying a BOOK? Jesus, what a looooooser." That kind of bookshop.

But SHOOTING DR. JACK was well worth the hour and a half we spent rummaging through the self-help nonsense and two-curlingly awful fantasy novels. It tells the tale of what happens when things go seriously wrong for Stoney - an alcoholic junkyard owner in Brooklyn. Aided and abetted by his business partner Tommy 'Bagadonuts' Roselli and the strangely talented, but staggeringly naïve Tuco; Stoney gets caught up in the worst kind of drug-related shenanigans**. It's fast paced, brilliantly observed and very, very readable.

The second book I'm going to recommend is Adrian Hyland' brilliant debut, DIAMOND DOVE. It's one of those rare books that really takes you somewhere new - in this case the Australian outback as seen through the eyes of Emily Tempest, a young aboriginal woman, as she tries to return to her mob's traditional home of Moonlight Downs. DIAMOND DOVE has it all: Murder, intrigue and some truly stunning dialogue.

It won the 2007 Ned Kelly Award for best first novel and Christ knows why it isn't better known over here. Excellent book.

I liked it so much I actually wrote my first ever review (for Shotts Mag) and even got Adrian to submit to one of the most unprofessional interviews you're ever likely to come across. But at the UK publisher's request, my paltry efforts won't be going up on the website until the paperback comes out September.

Right, and now I'm going to crawl back under my rock, before I start ranting about Gordon Brown and the Kingdom of the Unfeasibly High Petrol Prices. Cock-weasel.

* Not like that, you filth merchants.
** Oh, come on - how often do you get to use the word 'Shenanigans' when talking about a crime novel?

It am completed

2008-05-28T16:05:00.002+01:00

Book Number The Fifth still doesn't have a name*, but at least it's not lounging about the house any more, eating everything in the fridge, never picking up its socks, leaving the top off the toothpaste, and drinking all the booze. For today BNTF went off to live with it's aunties in London for a while.

Knowing my luck we'll just have got the stains out of the carpet and it'll be back again with a bin-liner full of dirty washing, and every sentence will begin with, "When I was in London, Aunt Sarah let me [insert unlikely scenario here, probably featuring hard liquor, tattoos, and potato scones]..."
And I'll be all, like, "Get a haircut, you lazy book!"
And it'll totally freak. "I hate you! I wish I was never written!"
And I'll be, like, "What-ev-er. Go to your room. And don't leave your jacket lying on the floor: this isn't a hotel."

Honestly.

Oh, I know it'll probably mature a little during the second draft, but right now it's all spots and surly attitude. Why can't it be like its big brother COLD GRANITE? Not only has Book Number The First moved out and got its own place, it even sends money home from time to time.

And while it will probably run off with some floozy librarian and refuse to look after She Who Must Be Placed In A Secure Residential Facility Where They Won't Give Her Access To Knives Or Short People and I in our dotage, we can take pride in the fact it won a school prize when it was little and isn't still hanging around making the place look untidy.

* So far it's known as either, 'Hey, you!', 'Book Number The Fifth', or 'BLIND [insert word here]'... That may well be why it has behavioural difficulties.

Sawbones

2008-05-19T19:41:00.005+01:00

I was going to have a big, long, elaborate whinge about how I can't write for toffee, soor plooms, sherbet flying saucers, or any other form of childhood confectionery, but as I know that kind of thing bores the pants off you, I won't. After all, it's important that you keep your pants on. Nobody wants to see your sinful nether regions at this time of day. Or any other time of day, come to that. It's enough to put somebody off their Pot Noodle, so it is.

So, instead of the scheduled whinge, I'm going to answer Grant's timely and completely unprompted question "Hey Stuart, what is Sawbones? There is no description on the linkey page."

And quite right he was. As far as I'm aware there's still no linkey-flavoured description, but I have flavouring for you, naughty people. I have flavouring coming out of my ears!*

SAWBONES is a novella coming out in July from Barrington Stoke, and for once it's not a Logan McRae book. Hell, it's not even set in Aberdeen... Cue VOICEOVERMAN!:

"They call him Sawbones: a serial killer touring North America, with a thing for young women. The FBI and the police say they're doing all they can: following up leads, doing things by the book. Getting nowhere.

But Sawbones has just made the biggest mistake of his life: his latest victim is Laura Jones, 16, blonde, pretty... and her father is one of New York's biggest gangsters.

Laura's father isn't interested in the law, or due process – he wants revenge. And he knows just the guys to get it.

Sawbones is about to find out that this time, he picked on the wrong family."

So there you go. Sawbones is a racing-snake 18,500 words and I have to admit that it's one of the best things I've ever done. And if you're a regular at Casa Del Halfhead, you'll know that traditionally I hate everything I've ever written.

This might have something to do with the fact that where FLESH HOUSE took me four and a half months to write and five months to edit, SAWBONES was a mere two weeks in the writing. I edited it in two days. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA! How could I not love it? It's the only book so far that hasn't sunk it's teeth into my arse and chewed off big lumps. I had fun! How freaky-weird is that?

And it's a mere £5.99! Well, that's the RRP, so you'll probably be able to pick it up for a lot less from the usual suspects.

I even have a blurb for it:

"keep[s] the tension wound up tighter than a tourniquet from an irate triage nurse"
Allan 'Horror-Bollocks' Guthrie

And you know Allan wouldn't lie to you... Would he?

[update-arama]

And now I have a fresh new blurb to go with the first blurb (which is a little older, but still within its sell-by-date and unlikely to give you food poisoning. Unless you have it with a side-order of mouldy coleslaw. And if that's what you're up to, you deserve all the vomit and diarrhoea you get.) :

"Only MacBride can turn a Winnebago ride through middle America into a violently depraved hunt for salvation."
Tamara Siler Jones

* Earwax is too a flavour!

I has got meaty goodness

2008-05-08T16:55:00.002+01:00

Well, it's been a year and a bit in the making, but Book Number The Fourth - AKA: FLESH HOUSE (it's a house of flesh!) - has started generating feedback. And some of it is very strange indeed. Or at least, different to what I'd expected.

The lovely David Stenhouse wrote a piece in Scotland on Sunday where he took a long hard look at the book and declared, "MacBride has written a highly convincing manifesto for vegetarianism" I did? I honestly didn't mean to. Really, I like meat* I am a confirmed omnivore. Any vegetarianismistical overtones are purely accidental.

But they must be there, because while trolling the interweb, looking to see if anyone hated the book yet (or had even noticed it existed), I came across the following on a vegetarian forum:

...I can't remember HOW the dream progressed to this, but suddenly I was eating a human hand. With the fingernails still on and everything. I now feel slightly ill, because it was raw and the texture of raw meat.. ew. I do know that in my dream I pronounced it "better than pork". I think I'll skip breakfast today, I still feel a little queasy...

Followed up a few posts later by:

...think I had my dream because last week I read a book where a serial killer was butchering his victims and selling them to catering companies/butchers. It was a really good book actually, it's called Flesh House. Veggies should check it out, we can feel all superior that we'd never eat human flesh by mistake...

Which is nice... I think... isn't it?

And at least now my test reader can rest easy that she wasn't the only one the book gave nightmares to. It looks like it's the kind of book that's going to be generous that way.

* And no, I don't mean it that way, you filthy perverts.

All longlisty

2008-05-05T14:59:00.003+01:00

I keep meaning to post some indecipherable rambles about the launch last week, but the loom of deadline beckons me with its pointy claws. Though technically it's more receding than looming. Look as it drifts further and further off into the distance! Bye bye, deadline...

Anyway, I shall post about the launch sometime soon, thus massaging my already overburdened ego with stories about how everyone loves me, because I'm so great. *ahem*

Meantime, I have been asked to point out that DYING LIGHT has been longlisted for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award 2008. Now last year I got my backside roundly kicked up and down the bookshelves by Allan 'is that a squirrel in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?' Guthrie, so obviously I'm anticipating another crushing defeat. Ah yes, I'll be glaring in bitter jealousy from the audience at Harrogate this year, while someone else walks off with that wooden-barrel-o-fun. Oh and I'm planning on spitting in the winner's pint as well. You know, just for giggles.

Anyway, if you are so inclined, you can vote for who makes it onto the shortlist either by hauling yourself into your nearest Waterstones, or clicking on this item of linky goodness and doing it online instead.

Oh I am so going to get my backside kicked again.

Beer! Beer! BEER!!!

2008-04-28T22:18:00.005+01:00

When I was wee, I made a list of things I'd like to achieve before I got old and stinky. Things like: go into space; make Doris Day my love slave*; kick the living shite out of Duncan McFee**; eat my own weight in pickled onions... You know: stuff grounded in realism. But one thing I thought beyond my destinitinous*** dreams was having my very own beer****.

Well dream no more, beardy boy, for fate has dug deep in it's lint-lined pocket and bought you a pint of the best!

Yup, as of Wednesday discerning connoisseurs of the brewers art may feast their jaded pallets on a super special, super limited edition ale, because those fine chaps (and chapesses) at Skye Brewery have produced a brew of artistic wonder to mark the publication of Book Number The Fourth.

Oh yes indeederoonie - from Wednesday you'll be able to walk into the very best pubs in Scotland and order a pint of FLESH HOUSE. 3.8% of blonde beer-type wonderment, guaranteed to make you completely irresistible to the opposite sex!*****

"But," I hear you yell, in an alcohol-soaked fervour, "where can we purchase this beer of exquisite loveliness, oh Bearded Sex God of mine?"
Well, you can get your hands on my foaming beery goodness at the following emporiums of the brewer's art (also known as pubs):

The Redgarth - Oldmeldrum
Castle Tavern - Inverness
Glenkindie Arms Hotel - Strathdon
Benleva Hotel - Drumnadrochit
Uig Hotel - Isle of Skye
Marine Hotel - Stonehaven
The Grill - Aberdeen

All of them excellent, independent pubs with a reputation of really knowing what they're doing when it comes to storing and serving really good beer******

And as an extra special treat, Archibald Simpson are going to be selling it too! And as that's where a lot of Aberdeen's police officers drink after a hard shift keeping the city safe, I'm pretty chuffed about it.

And all this was the dark and twisted idea of Stuart Singer of the Redgarth in Oldmeldrum (DI Insch's local and not only does it features in the FLESH HOUSE, Stuart gets a speaking part too!). Now I am officially rock and roll. Whoo, yeah, and other things.

* Well, I was only young and she was very, very pretty. I mean, you would, wouldn't you? Phoaaaaaaaar... (I mean that in an inclusive and empowering way)
** He lived up the road from me and was a rotten bullying bastard. But his eyes were too close together, so I can take solace in the fact that he's either never managed to get a woman to have sex with him, or he's had SERIOUSLY ugly babies.
*** It wasn't a word before, but it is now. Destinitinous: noun. items of an impending destiny-related nature. e.g. "Dropping the pregnancy down the toilet was destinitinous for Daphne, because nine months later her life followed it." See? Perfectly cromulent.
**** Partly because I was five and had no concept of naughty grown-up things like beer. (though Doris Day was obviously a destinitinous exception)
***** Or that's what you'll think after six or seven pints of the stuff, by which time you'll probably be making sweet, sweet love to the nearest fire extinguisher. You saucy minx you.
****** Is it just me, or do I sound like 'VOICEOVERMAN'?

Children are naughty

2008-04-24T09:41:00.006+01:00

Grendel T Kittenfish MacBride is officially in the bad books today. I let her out at about half four this morning, seeing her on her way with the usual set of instructions: "Be good, stay away from the road and no fighting!" She went, "Prooop!" in reply and pattered off into the mist.

Stuart then grumbles about how it's too cold to be standing outside in the altogether at half four in the morning, before shuffling back to bed and a disturbing dream we won't go into here.*

06:40 and the alarm goes off. More grumbling, some ranting at the radio while the newspaper headlines are read out. And then our bearded protagonist groans his way out of bed to let the cat back in.

Nothing.

The door opens on a world of white, the sound of distant cockerels bellowing their wakeup call, muffled by a thick blanket of fog. The sound of randy pigeons going at it in the hedge. And a bearded crime write-ist shouting, "Kitten? Come on! Grennnnnnnnnnndel!" Very manly.

Still nothing.

Then the Bearded, naked one** looks down at what's lying on the porch floor. And swears.

We've had stoats living next to us ever since we moved out to the back end of nowhere. It was part of the appeal of the place, seeing these lovely little marmalade coloured ribbons of fur pop-hopping through the long grass, white tummies shining in the sunlight. Sometimes dragging a rabbit three times their size from point A (where they killed it) to point B (where they were going to gnaw their way into its skull and feast on the gooey goodness inside). I like stoats.

Remember a couple of weeks ago I posted about a milk-fed baby rabbit Grendel left half eaten in the porch, oozing yoghurty stuff all over the concrete? Well, we'd finally come to the conclusion that there was no way Little Miss would have gone down the burrow to get the thing, and what were the chances of her grabbing it on its very first day out of the warren? Slim, but not impossible. And then last week I watched one of the neighbourhood stoats hauling a huge rabbit across our front lawn. Dropping the thing every four pop-hops to take a breather. BIG rabbit.

So what were the chances of Grendel lying in wait for Mrs Stoat to come along so she could relieve it of its shopping? A damn sight higher than the previous two options.

Well it looks like this time Mrs Stoat decided she wasn't giving up the bunny quite so easily.

Now I don't mind Grendel murdering mice, battering bees, crunching centipedes, or slaughtering shrews, but stoats? Stoats are dangerous. Stoats have big pointy teeth that bite things. Stoats are carnivorous killers. You do not screw with stoats.***

Which is why Little Miss Violent Fish now has a pair of holes in her nose. Well, an extra pair if you're counting nostrils. And they're not holes in the 'go all the way through' sense, more sort of dents. With blood.

We don't have any TCP either. Not that she'd sit still for long enough for us to rub it in - it was difficult enough just getting her to pose for the picture. She's so chuffed with herself it's unreal. "Look at me! I killed a stoat! A STOAT! Not some sort of cheesy little mouse, or a wriggly little piss-ant shrew, S-T-O-A-T! Oh yeah, who's your kitty? Eh? WHO'S YOUR KITTY?"

This is not the kind of behaviour I like to encourage.

How's she going to hold on to her crown as the world's prettiest cat if she keeps collecting scars all over her nose? And what's next: badgers? Alsatians? Jehovah's Witnesses? Am I going to wake up one morning and find a full-grown grizzly bear lying face down, dead on my porch? And don't look at me like that - it is too possible. The bear might be in the North East of Scotland on holiday... visiting with relatives... or backpacking its way around the world, working in bars and things to pay its way. You know. There it is, out snaffling picnic baskets, or looking for a shady wooded spot to do its business, and the next thing it knows there's this furry ball of teeth and claws ripping its throat out, screeching, "WHO'S YOUR KITTY?"

It's not too difficult to give Mrs Stoat a decent Christian burial courtesy of the council's fortnightly collection, but can you imagine trying to cram a dead bear into a wheely bin?

* But it did involve marmalade.
** Stop picturing me naked! It's very naughty. What would your significant other say?
*** Unless you are seriously perverted and don't mind lacerated genitalia.