Behind the scenes in the Pundy House

I've never had malaria but I can't imagine it's much different from the state I was in following the launch of my attempt on this blog to lure someone - anyone - to review my self-published novel A Half Life Of One.

Nevertheless, despite the fog in my brain, by Thursday 17th - the day after I published the post titled "Squeaky Bottom Time" - I knew that I had at least one firm offer of a book review. That was the good news. The bad news was that the offer came from Maxine Clark, a professional editor in real life and a prodigious reviewer in the literary blogosphere. Ms Clark possesses an intellect of adamantine hardness. Formidably well-read, incisive, honest and totally unafraid to call a spade a shovel I only had to picture her leafing through the pages of my book to feel my insides turning to ice. Swallowing hard, I posted her off a review copy.

By the time Friday came I was wishing I had never written the damned thing. There was no way Ms Clark could fail to see through my amateurish efforts. I was about to be exposed to the world as the literary dilettante I so obviously was. My nascent writing career would be strangled at birth. And rightly so. In publishing the book myself I had been guilty of terrible hubris. My jokey approach on this blog had only made matters worse. I had played the fool too long and only succeeded in fooling myself. She would be doing me - and the reading world - a favour when she put me out of my misery with her withering review.

For the next forty-eight hours as the weekend dragged by I felt like I was on Death Row, waiting for the fateful call. At seventeen twenty-eight on Sunday night it came. I was staring listlessly at my computer as I prepared to write my valedictory farewell to the blogosphere. Suddenly my inbox flashed. I had a new message. From Maxine Clark. My heart sank. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, possibly my last. Farewell dear world, farewell to all my dreams and aspirations. Reluctantly I opened my eyes and clicked the Read button on my inbox.

"I read it and I liked it..."

I wanted to cry. Then I wanted to laugh as I read the rest of the e-mail. Most of all I wanted to get down on my knees and kiss her feet. She liked it. She was going to give it a good review. I had done it. She had written my reprieve and I had survived.

And that's when the trouble really started.

I was so elated that night that I couldn't sleep. My head was spinning so fast I couldn't think straight. All I knew was that I had one good review in the bag. I began to plan the next stage in my marketing campaign. The next big challenge was to interest some booksellers in stocking the book. I started to compose another blog post that I could use as a hook in my bid for bestsellerdom. The result was a post on this blog titled: " ***Press Release*** Onanist publisher announces... "

How I wish I hadn't written that post.

Even at the time I didn't think it was very funny, which is always a bad sign. Its main failing though was that it sent out completely the wrong message. You simply can't promote a book by announcing to the world how few copies you are selling, no matter how witty you are. Not only that, the novel itself is completely devoid of humour. There is simply no synergy whatsoever between the book and the jokey message I was putting out. Just how stupid can a person be? Think about it - I'd just garnered a brilliant review that could have helped me launch the book with a flourish and I had discarded that precious gift from the literary Gods in favour of another dose of my own puerile sense of humour. Somebody should take me out and shoot me. It would be a kindness.

Nevertheless, being the idiot I am, I went ahead and composed the post and published it on the blog the following morning. To deafening silence. Not one single soul was out there laughing at my brilliant wit. The lines to Amazon were not buzzing with orders for the book. By lunchtime I had sunk into a deep depression. I knew I had made a mistake publishing that post. What I should have done was taken Maxine's review and used it as the basis for an information sheet which I could send out to independent publishers.

It wasn't too late. I could delete the ill-conceived post and no-one would know.

Instead I started scanning the web for the e-mail addresses of independent booksellers. Another, this time disastrous, e-mail campaign was about to begin.

Evelyn Whore

A couple of posts back I outlined my strategy for marketing my self-pubbed novel A Half Life Of One. I thought you might like to know how I'm progressing with my first big target: getting the book reviewed.

I guess I could simply have sent the book out to various literary pundits and writers and asked them to kindly review it. The trouble with that approach is that most people with any literary authority either already have a huge pile of unread review copies from traditional publishers sitting in front of them; or, they are the kind of discriminating reviewer who is likely to regard a self-pubbed novel with the same circumspection with which they would view something left behind by a dog in the children's play area of a public park.

I concluded, therefore, that my first priority was to divert attention from the book itself and instead sell the idea of reviewing the book. To do this, not for the first time, I decided to use humour as my sales vehicle. I would write a humorous Post on the blog in the hope that it might pique someone's interest enough to take on the task.

Let me say right away that this is a very dangerous marketing strategy. For a start there is the problem of writing something that is actually funny. Secondly, my idea of humour is not universally shared, especially not by the glitterati, many of whom are pretty seriously-minded intellectuals, or at least think they are. What I think is funny, other people may consider silly, banal, inappropriate or even downright offensive. In fact, adopting this strategy meant I might devalue, or even destroy, my brand before I'd even started. So why do it?

Because I had no choice. The fact is that there are so many books published each year that it is worth almost any risk in an effort to differentiate my brand and get it to stand out from the crowd. It's a shit-or-bust strategy, but when you are a self-publisher you really don't have much choice.

And so I spent a sleepless Sunday night lying in bed composing the post titled "Squeaky Bottom Time". I drafted it out on Monday and spent Monday night and a good part of Tuesday working on it. Yes, that long for that inconsequential little squib. The fact is, it's hard to overstate how important that post was to me. The first real sales initiative in my marketing campaign for the book I've spent half my life writing. To say I was nervous doesn't begin to describe how I was feeling. Worrying over the post I'd lost my appetite, suffered severe mood swings and come Wednesday morning I was living on adrenaline. I could even feel the bitter, metallic taste of the chemical on my tongue. To make matters worse I was light-headed from a potent mix of hysteria and hunger. My finger shook as it hovered over the mouse ready to activate the Publish Post button on my blog. It didn't help that by then I had no idea whether the post was funny or not. Closing my eyes, I pushed the button and prayed.

Nothing happened.

The post was published all right but no-one was reading it. I checked my Stat Counter every few minutes for the next few hours. Hardly anyone was visiting and no-one was Commenting. Not for the first time I was screaming into the void.

I realised that I had to leverage my Post in order to gain some attention. I decided to send out a bunch of e-mails in a desperate attempt to attract some traffic to the blog. Now, let me say right off that I know full well that such bulk e-mails are regarded as Spam and are universally loathed. I felt like a whore for doing it but there was no way round it. I tried to ameliorate my misgivings by telling myself that every writer nowadays is selling something. It is part of the modern writing process. The days when writers like Evelyn Waugh could treat his readers with absolute disdain are long gone.

And so I spent the whole of Wednesday compiling a list of victims, hunting down literary websites, booksellers and even the national press, until my eyes ached. In the end I sent out an initial batch of sixty e-mails with a link back to my blog. Here's what they said:

Subject: How to market your novel even when it's rubbish

Hi Mr Smith

Take a look HERE for advice on how to market your novel.

Don't bother if you're busy tho' - it isn't that funny.

regards

Bill Liversidge
View From The Pundyhouse (blog)

Nervously I watched the stat counter. Within minutes the number of visitors gradually increased. Some of the people I had written to had started to respond. Then a few of my regular visitors popped round and left some friendly Comments. Dovegreyreader - one of the pre-emininent blog reviewers visited for the first time and left a Comment. Even the esteemed and formidable Jenny Diski dropped by with an encouraging word.

Behind the scenes even more was happening as I began to receive a series of encouraging e-mails. A number of distinguished people - including one very famous name in the book publishing world - offered to review the book. I began to feel mightily relieved, even elated. Even though the reviews might savage the book at least I had achieved my first objective. I could see some light at the end of the tunnel.

What I didn't realise was that it was a train hurtling towards me.

But more of that in the next post.

***Press Release***Onanist Publisher announces..

Leading onanist publisher Bill Pundy today released sales figures for the company's major Autumn launch, the psychological chiller A Half Life Of One by Bill Liversidge.

Pundy (59), CEO of sprawling self-publishing behemoth Pundyhouse Publishing Corp, announced to an auditorium packed with financial analysts and leading publishing luminaries that sales of A Half Life Of One were “Holding up well”.

In a generally upbeat sales report Mr Pundy informed his expectant audience that “So far the sale we made to Mrs Liversidge – the author’s present wife – remains firm. To date she has neither returned the book nor asked for her money back.”

Asked why he hadn’t yet bought a copy of the book himself the larger-than-life publisher retorted that such a move could be construed as unethical especially if it skewed the book’s Amazon sales ranking since it effectively doubled unit sales. When pressed further he revealed that he hadn’t read the book himself because he “hadn’t had time”.

Flanking him on the podium the book’s author Bill Liversidge responded in a somewhat subdued fashion to a question about what it was like having his wife read his work. “To the best of my knowledge she hasn’t read it yet,” he opined, “It just sits there on the sideboard unopened, a malevolent presence, a ticking elephant in the room.”

Jock Pundy, the company’s florid Scottish-born Marketing Vice-President further announced that talks were on track to have the book stocked in one of London’s leading independent bookshops in time for the Christmas sales bonanza. “We expect to ship a shedload truckload barrowload small box heavily discounted copy early next week,” he declared pugnaciously.

A spokesman for the bookshop contacted later said that such a shipment would be premature as no deal had actually been signed. Speaking on strict condition of anonymity the spokesman declared however that the booksellers were “Reasonably confident that we can shift a copy of this, er, interesting book over the Christmas period, when a lot of people spend money on things they wouldn’t normally buy.”

When contacted again for further clarification the spokesman declined to say whether he was referring to the book selling out by this Christmas, or the one following.

Squeaky Bottom Time

Okay, now that I've become a full-time part-time publisher I'm finally ready to roll out the first phase of my Harry Potter-lite International Book Marketing Strategy.

Basically, what I need to do first is generate some word-of-mouth excitement in the blogosphere. Enough to entice a few shills actually to buy a copy with their own hard-earned cash. (Note: This book is definitely NOT suitable as a present. Especially if you know - and like - the intended recipient.)

To achieve the necessary level of iPod-like desirability that will send it winging from my hallway and around the globe I'm going to send out review copies of A Half Life Of One to as many of the movers and shakers in the blogosphere and beyond as I can think of.

This is of course a high-risk strategy since the inherent problem with self-publishing - the absence of any objective quality assessment as to the book's merits - is that the book may actually be A HUGE PILE OF CRAP. However, on the off-chance that it isn't and that I'll actually attain literary immortality (as well as the pressing necessity of shifting the daunting pile of unsold books that are blocking up the hallway) it's a step I have to take. After that it's just a question of waiting nervously for the reviews to roll in. At which point it's likely to be me that's doing the moving and shaking.

If you're sadistic enough to think you want to be part of this archaic and inhumane process feel free to e-mail me for your review copy. If you haven't the stomach to pull the trigger yourself, let me know of anyone else who might be bloodyminded enough to want a copy. You need to hurry though. Once the reviews start appearing this could be the shortest book launch on record.

And to think that I entered the publishing racket thinking it might actually be fun.

Unintended consequences

The law of unintended consequences kicked in on Friday when I unexpectedly sold the first copy of my novel A Half Life Of One.

I recognised the buyer immediately. It was my wife. To say I was stunned is an understatement. Somehow I never thought she would want to read the book but apparently the cover sold her. Or so she said. I suspect there was more to it than that. I could see she was a little nervous as she handed over the exact amount of cash. Not as nervous as I'm going to be waiting for her to pronounce judgement on the book though.

My anxiety is further exacerbated by the fact that she's basically a professional reviewer and a tough one at that. She spends half her life marking theses and exam papers. She also reads widely for relaxation. Jane Austen, Dickens, P D James and Ian Rankin are amongst her favourites. I'm not quite sure how I'll fare in such august company.

It doesn't help either that she's going to recognise bits of herself in the book. The wife of the central character is clearly based on her, in just the same way that I am the central character. That being the case, it doesn't help that it's not a particularly flattering portrait. The marriage, too, the catalyst for everything evil in the book, is not a happy one. In fact, it's anything but.

Hm.

You may find it surprising that I almost never show her anything I've written, especially something as momentous as a novel. The fact is, like a lot of writers I suppose, I draw heavily on life and she's appeared thinly disguised in much of what I've written. Actually, that's not quite true. What I do is take a real-life character or situation and then twist it and turn it until it assumes a grotesque caricature of reality. As far as real life goes, only ghosts should survive. That's the theory anyway.

All the same, even I can see that there are faint, unpleasant echoes of the real world still lingering in the book. People and situations that will bring back unhappy memories. Truths that would normally be left unsaid. Perhaps the best I can hope for is that she finds the thing unreadable and gives up after the first few pages.

If she does I'll happily give her her money back. If she reads on, I have a sinking feeling that I'll end up still paying, one way or another.

Looks familiar

I was walking past the bookcase in the sitting-room today when something unaccountably caught my eye...

I stopped and did a double take. Something familiar and yet unaccountably odd had caught my attention. I peered closer...

The sunlight made it difficult to see but all the same. I squinted. It couldn't be, could it...

I felt a shiver running down my spine as I reached out to touch the book I thought I'd never see...

On becoming a publisher

Now that I'm about to take the plunge into the world of self-publishing with my novel A Half Life of One I feel like a tiny child standing at the foot of a huge cliff wondering how I'm ever going to climb to the top.

First off, I guess, I have to look at the world in a whole different way. Instead of writing books my main purpose in life for the next few months will be all about selling books. And that requires a whole different skills set.

I already know that the average self-pubbed novel sells no more than forty or so copies in its lifetime. So if I set myself the extravagant target of offloading, say, one hundred copies of my masterpiece on the unsuspecting public I need some sort of strategy to achieve my goal. In fact I need a Marketing Plan. Before I can compose that I need to develop my thoughts somewhat on the structure of the market and how best I can attack it. Just like any traditional publisher in fact.

Here's my initial thoughts on the challenge:

First of all I need to look at how the supply chain of the publishing industry works. In my case, it seems to me, there are three main routes to market:

1 Direct online selling via my website
2 Indirect online selling via Amazon
3 Indirect selling via Bookshops

In addition there might be some subsidiary routes to market, for example:

a Direct sales to Reading Groups
b Selling Book Tokens
c Via trade and magazine advertising

It seems to me that main routes (1) and (2) require the oxygen of publicity to make them work. This might be generated in various ways such as:

i Book reviews from key opinion formers. This is a pretty fundamental first step, it seems to me, upon which the rest of my marketing strategy depends. These people exist in outlets such as blogs, newspapers and trade (financial? entrepreneurial?) magazines. Let's say I set myself the target of getting 10 reviews over the next three months. And let's say too that most of them will be favourable (maybe a big assumption).

ii Carefully targeted Press Releases built round the story of the book leading to interviews or plugs for the book.

iii Paid advertising. I need to set a Sales and Marketing budget here just like any proper publisher. Ignoring the cost of the free copies I will give away let's say £500 for now. This will wipe out any profit I'll make on sales but that's not the point. The point is to sell as many copies as possible and thus build up a platform - my brand - for future leverage when my next book comes out. In other words I'm investing in my brand - me, the writer.

iv Word of mouth. I don't know exactly how this will work but I am aware that this is what drives real success in books and music and films, especially online. I need to get a buzz going in the media, including the blogosphere. I have some ideas about how I'll do this but this area definitely needs a lot more development work.

Finally, there's route 3 - selling via Bookshops. This is a very tough nut indeed for a self-pubber to crack. Hopefully, some authoritative reviews, a brilliant AI sheet sent out as a mailshot, some favourable publicity and the odd kind-hearted bookseller or two will get me into a few of the nation's independent bookshops. Oh, that and a no-quibble sale or return policy and a generous discount to help ease open the door.

Well, that's the plan so far. It should be fun even if (as I suspect) I sell no copies at all. In any event I'll let you know how I get on and I'll undertake to publish the Sales Figures on a regular basis.

Incidentally, if anyone out there has any experience of going down the self-publishing route I'd be delighted to hear from you about the joys and pitfalls that no doubt await me.

Any dream will do

I've spent most of my adult life trying to get published by a traditional publisher. That's four finished novels and over forty years of rejection slips. Anyone in their right mind would have given up years ago. They can't all be wrong, can they?

Well, maybe they can. Fortunately, the internet threw me a lifeline. I "published" A Half Life of One over on my sister blog more than a year ago. Enough people read it and told me they liked it to allow me to think that maybe the book wasn't quite as bad as traditional agents and publishers seemed to think.

And so I abandoned my old dream and decided to self-publish. It wasn't an easy decision. I'm not used to failure. It wasn't until I finally realised that writing is all about readers and not about my own self-glorification that I could bring myself to accept the truth of my situation.

Once I decided to self-publish the rest was easy. I contacted Gavin Pugh of Gav's Studio and he basically did the rest with a minimum of input from me. Designed the cover, set the layout, got the ISBN number, organised the printer, etc etc. All with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of helpful suggestions. I think he knew I was hurting going down this route but he was very gentle with me. Thanks, Gav, you've been brilliant.

The book will come out in a couple of weeks time. I'll be sending signed copies to everyone who has asked for one - including a number of anonymous readers round the globe. Then it's on to the marketing phase - sending out review copies, seeking publicity etc. All the stuff that a traditional publisher would do, and maybe a bit more. I'm really excited by the challenge of elbowing my way into a crowded market place. I'll let you know how it goes.

Here's the front and back cover to give you a little taster. Hope you like it.

Dancing in the dark

I took the first few tentative steps back to some kind of a life today.

I wrote another chapter of Mummy's Boy. Just a short, first draft. Nothing much. I know it's not very good but at least it's something I can work on. And I've broken the logjam. Let's hope the river flows in spate, at least for a while. Actually, even a trickle will do.

We can't live without water after all.

It's 10.30 and Bruce is on the iPod singing "Dancing in the Dark". I know just what he means. I'm not dancing, I'm shuffling. But at least I'm moving.

Reader's Block

I'm used to periods of writer's block where every time I sit down to write it all seems so pointless. Days when even mild depression gives way to despair.

Lately though it's got even worse, and now I'm having trouble forcing myself to read things I know I'll enjoy. I don't know why this is happening. Even blogs I that I normally read with pleasure, my hand hovers over the mouse, unable to click through to a site that I know will cheer me up, if only momentarily. This especially applies to sites where I know I will meet an online friend, someone who has been kind to me in the past. Maybe I don't want to be reminded of the good times I've enjoyed in the past, the emotions that are unavailable to me right now.

Or maybe it's just because their verbal fecundity reminds me so forcibly of my own tongue-tied desuetude.

I guess the only answer is to start writing again. Throw myself a lifeline. Write the next chapter of Mummy's Boy and become human again.

Yes, that is the only answer. But then I've know that for weeks.

Interview with the author - Part 2

The other day I interviewed the well-known blogger, oenomaniac and online-novelist Bill Pundy. The interview, I am forced to admit, did not go as well as I had hoped. For some reason Mr Pundy took exception to a number of my questions and I was obliged to terminate the interview somewhat prematurely. Ever the optimist I have returned to Pundy Mansions armed with a conciliatory bottle of Cava and a large box of Cadbury's Milk Tray. This time I hope to obtain a deeper insight into the extraordinary creative genius that has brought Bill Pundy so many legions of adoring readers.


Nervously I ring the bell in the porch beneath the sign "Arbeit Macht Frei", a language with which I am not, sadly, familiar although I suspect it may be Spanish. Mr Pundy answers in person. I can see at once that the signs do not look propitious. Mr Pundy, to be frank, looks like seven miles of rough road. He is unshaven. His hair is tousled. His eyes are bloodshot. He is dressed in stained and crumpled pajamas held up by string. Neither does he smell too good. Although it is only eleven in the morning he appears to be unsteady on his feet. Nervously I invite myself in. The interview begins in the kitchen, after Mr Pundy has cleared away most of the empty beer and wine bottles to allow me to place my tape recorder between us.


Me: Good morning. Mr Pundy - may I call you that? - many critics have detected a strong religious element running through much of your writing. In particular, you seem to be preoccupied with the state of your characters' souls. Do you yourself believe in God?



Pundy (looking bemused): Which one?


Me: Er, any one. You were brought up a Catholic I believe?


Pundy: Is God a Catholic? The Pope is, I know that (Ha ha). By and large me old cock I don't believe in anything.


Me: You're an atheist?


Pundy: No, I don't believe in that neither.


Me: All those references to the soul? Surely if you believe a man has a soul...


Pundy: It's a metaphor, innit, mate. A figure of speech. Something like that anyway. I had mumps when they did figures of speech at school.


Me: But if the soul lives on after death... Perhaps your philosophy at least encompasses the concept of the afterlife?


Pundy: I bleedin' hope not. This one's been bad enough as it is. Besides, there's a lot of people I wouldn't want to meet second time around. You for example.


Me: Perhaps we should move on. May I ask where you get your ideas from? Do you, as I suspect, work out the plot first, creating, so to speak, the skelton from which you can hang your wonderful themes of good combating evil?


Pundy: I never know how it's going to work out to tell you the truth, squire. Mostly I start with a character - which is obviously me and since I don't have a fucking clue what I'm doing now never mind when I become fictitious. I'm a bleedin' mystery I am and that's a fact. I ain't got the foggiest how it's going to turn out, no word of a lie. Wif any luck the characters start to take on a life of their own and Bob's your uncle. All I got to do is write it down as it happens in me 'ead, if it happens that is and I ain't rat-arsed which is more than likely. That's where I'm at with Mummy's Boy, ain't I - the characters are just about to shoot off on their own, God knows where, dragging me with them, the cheeky little bleeders.


Me: That sounds thrilling.



Pundy: Nah. It's more scary than exciting. They're just as likely to run up a blind alley as do something interesting. There's no knowing with characters. If I had my way I'd do without 'em altogether and write science books. Except I don't know nuffink about science neither. 'Ere, want a drink? (Pundy reaches for the half empty bottle of Laphroaig and pours himself a tumbler full). Christ, I've got a mouth like the inside of a Turkish wrestler's jockstrap. Not that I've ever tasted a Turkish wrestler's jockstrap, you understand. It's another one of them figures of speech innit. Interesting things, figures of speech. Must find out more about 'em sometime.


Me: The joys of education.


Pundy: Don't talk to me about education. All it ever did for me was teach me to want things I couldn't have. Gave me ideas above my station, didn't it. I tell yer I sometimes wish I was thick I do. Like most of me mates. Don't know no better and happy with their lot. Lucky bleeders. Nah, don't talk to me about education, mate. Ere' what about that drink? Yes or no?


Me: No thanks, it's a bit early for me. Tell me about blogging. Are the same processes involved in the production of your ethereal bon mots or is it perhaps more cerebral as you develop each idea to its logical, and sometimes surprising, conclusion?


Pundy: Blogging? What about it? It's just words flying around the ether innit. Most of them...er, how would you say....most of them.....

Me: Crap?

Pundy: Shit. Flying shit. Shit hitting the fan. Shit flying off a shovel. Shit.....

At this point, as darkness descends and gloom grows all around I make my excuses and leave, deeply troubled by the spectacle I am leaving behind, the erstwhile literary Colossus once spoken of in the same breath as Hardy and Georgette Heyer reduced to the role of a mumbling idiot. I can still hear the great man muttering away to himself as I pull shut the huge door to Pundy Mansions behind me, a crumbling, gothic pile haunted by broken dreams and unfulfilled expectations.

I fear this may be my last visit. The experience is simply too painful.

Interview with the author

I've been waiting a long time (59 years) for someone to interview me and now it's finally happened. Here's the result, exactly as it happened:

Me: Mr Pundy, when did you first start blogging and why?

Pundy: You're the first person to ask me that question. I guess because I wanted to publicise my unpublished online novel A Half Life of One and become a famous and widely-admired writer.

Me: Did it work out that way?

Pundy: Not entirely. I never became famous. Or widely admired. Apart from that, and the lack of readers, yeah it worked out pretty well.

Me: Tell me about your early life. Did you have a difficult childhood? Is that what made you become a writer?

Pundy: Well, I was younger then. For a while at least. Then I grew older right up until the age I am now. As I got older shit happened - a lot of shit - and I wanted to tell the world about it. Hence the novels. I wrote a load of shit.

Me: Do you think humour is important and how does it manifest itself in your novels?

Pundy: I used to have a great sense of humour until life started getting me down, about fifteen years ago, but even then a lot of people remarked that it was tinged with a wistful, almost sardonic edge. Now I'm mostly just bitter. All this shit isn't so funny anymore.

Me: And in your novels?

Pundy: Fuck, haven't you done any research at all? Positively not. Those books are unremittingly bleak, downbeat, almost suicidal.

Me: A lot of people talk about it but have you ever considered suicide yourself?

Pundy: Sure, hundreds of times. I'm considering it right now with all these stupid questions an' all. Life is just a sick joke anyway. Get it over with.

Me: So why haven't you done it?

Pundy: I can't afford to until the mortgage is paid off. That's got three years to go.

Me: And then?

Pundy: Sayonara, baby.

Me: Is that Chinese?

Pundy: Korean, I think.

Me: So in your books you take a long hard look at the human condition in all its manifest guises?
Pundy: I don't give a fuck about the human condition. The books are about me and what a rough deal I've had.

Me: How would you describe the creative process as it applies to you?

Pundy (scratches his ear thoughtfully): I'm not sure the creative process does apply to me. I just sit here at the keyboard and prod away. Mostly it's just crap that comes out.

Me: Do you re-write much?

Pundy: Sure. About seven times. But it's still just crap.

Me: More elegant crap surely?

Pundy: No. Shorter crap, usually. More concentrated crap. Crappier crap.

Me: As you look back on a long and largely unfulfilled life do you have any regrets?

Pundy (glaring): You shitting me?

Me: If you had your time again what would you have done differently?

Pundy: (Unintelligible)...off.

Me: Thank you, Mr Pundy, that was a fascinating interview. I'll turn off this tape recorder for now and then we'll resume the interview tomorrow when we'll talk about your influence upon the blogosphere.

Pundy: 'Scuse me? You sure you got the right person here?

Thinker's Block

Even the occasional migrant visitor to this modest blog can't fail to notice that I am blogging less frequently than I once did. "Run out of ideas", they probably surmise, before they flit off to the next waystation on their long journey to online enlightenment.

Except that the very opposite is true. I'm brimming over with ideas, my mind is in a state of constant creative ferment, I'm drowning in a fomenting cauldron of witty and original thoughts. Where it's all going wrong is that bit between thinking up an idea and then committing it to paper. Or in this case, to computer. Somewhere during my mental re-writes - and I need all my ideas at least half-formed before I can even think of committing them to paper -the flashes of inspiration are rapidly losing their lustre, the wit becomes tarnished, the original becomes commonplace.

I don't know why this is happening. The process is self-defeating. The more I think about things the less I have to say. Silence hovers over the vacuum, the arid universe expands inexorably, screams are strangled, life flickers and dies in the arid landscape.

Occasionally one half-formed idea, more of a sigh than a statement, does stagger onto the page, blinking in the harsh light of the blogosphere. At times like these I feel like one of those fabled idiot savants, astonished by my unexpected sagacity, startled by the strange, gutteral sound of my own voice.

Except that when I read my words of wisdom I discover to my dismay that I am 90% idiot and only 10% savant.

The future was now

The great thing about getting old is that you get to see how the future turns out.

If, like me, you hang around this mortal coil long enough you get to stand on one side and watch that handsome young man metamorphose into a lugubrious old git. I've even got a picture to prove it. That's the one portrayed in the photo alongside this post, peering out myopically into the blogosphere. More importantly, if you live long enough you get to find out whether or not all those callow hopes and aspirations you once cherished were actually fulfilled. You can see from my expression how I thought it turned out for me.

Armed with this knowledge of the future I've been looking back into my past and turning it into a new novel, called Mummy's Boy. The odd thing is, though, that despite my proven powers of clairvoyancy, I don't yet know how the novel is going to end.

Not with a death-bed scene I hope.

The greatest golfer who has ever lived

For a very brief period in time - about ten minutes all told - my ten year old son Christopher was the greatest golfer who has ever lived. Indeed, if he had taken my advice at the time his incredible performance would today eclipse anything Tiger Woods or Bobby Jones has ever achieved. Here's how it happened.

I was playing golf with my eldest son David at Tarland Golf Club, a beautiful rural course not far from where we live. Christopher was caddying for me and up to that point had never swung a golf club in anger. We reached the short par three eighth which is hidden in the trees well out of sight of the clubhouse. Christopher begged me to let him have a go. I looked around. The course was deserted and there was no-one coming up behind.

"Okay," I agreed with a somewhat condescending smile on my face, "I'll tee the ball up for you as long as you give me time to stand well clear."

I handed Christopher a seven iron and he addressed the ball. Well, he didn't so much address it as send it a very long letter written in an extremely shaky hand. Eventually the club tottered high above his head and he wound himself up to take a mighty slash at the ball. Somewhat to our surprise as the club descended with an audible swoosh he actually managed to strike the ball a glancing blow and it shot off to the right, ricochetting about twenty yards down the fairway. He looked downcast.

I suddenly felt sorry for him. Golf looks such an easy game but of course it's anything but. "It's okay, Christopher. Don't worry about it. Just slow your swing down a bit and you'll be okay."

David and I played our shots but neither of us found the green. Together we walked up to Christopher's ball and this time I handed him a nine iron. He took another mighty swipe and the ball rolled forward thirty yards as he fell over backwards.

"You're still swinging too fast," I muttered as I gently picked him up and brushed the mud off his back.

David and I played our second shots and this time we both found the green, albeit neither of us was close to the pin.

"What will I hit this time?" asked Christopher, as he peered down at his ball nestling in the rough about twenty yards from the green.

"I'm not sure it matters," I replied, looking at the nasty lie, "Here, try this." I handed him a sand wedge but it could equally have been a driver for all the difference it would have made to his control over the shot. Even at this early stage in his career I could see that finesse wasn't going to be a major part of his golfing armoury.

We watched with some trepidation as he took another mighty swipe at the half-hidden ball. To our surprise the ball jumped cleanly out of the rough and curved gracefully towards the green where it bounced twice then trickled along somewhat erratically for several yards before tumbling into the hole.

"Good God," said David, "That's unbelievable."

I was too stunned to speak as the realisation of what my son had just achieved began to dawn on me. If he stopped now his record would be unique. The list of his achievements ran through my mind like wildfire. In his golfing career my son had parred every hole he had ever played. He had never had a bogey. He had never taken more than three on any hole he had ever played. He had never missed a put. In fact, he was so good with his irons that he had never even needed to put. If he stopped now his average score on any round would be fifty-four, way better than anyone who has ever lived. If...well, the list seemed endless. A marketeer's dream. Pound signs began to flash in front of my eyes and I suddenly felt faint. For a moment I even believed that there actually was a God.

As we made our way to the next tee - David and I both having bogied the hole - I tried to convey to Chris the momentous import of what he had just achieved. I begged him never to lift another golf club again. I promised him sporting immortality, his own entry in the Guinness Book of Records, untold wealth and fame (which I, naturally, as his manager, would share).

He was having none of it. Buoyed up by his success he insisted on playing the next hole. Reluctantly I handed him a three wood. Twenty-three stokes later he finally cajoled the ball into the hole. In the space of two holes he had gone from being the best player who had ever lived to one of the worst. Again I begged him to stop. The Rolls Royce was rapidly disappearing over the horizon but the manager in me figured we could still make a modest living peddling the story of his precipitous descent into ignominy.

Again he was having nothing of it. He insisted on playing the next hole and the one after that. Even worse he subsequently took up golf as an enthusiastic amateur becoming, as the years passed, a pretty decent player.

Which is why neither you, nor anybody else, has ever heard of him and Tiger Woods sleeps soundly in his four-poster bed at night, safe in the knowledge that HE, and not my son, is the greatest golfer who has ever lived.

More debauchery

Several years ago I overheard a conversation on the radio about orgies while I was driving to the local garden fete. The interviewee was a well-known writer and minor celebrity who had attained a certain notoriety for her outspoken views on sex. I believe she's largely forgotten now and for the life of me I can't remember her name. I do recall that at the time she was middle-aged and rather overweight.

The interviewer asked her if, as well as writing about them, she had ever actually been to an orgy.

"Oh yes, I've been to several."

"Really? And, er, did you indulge?"

"No."

"I see. You write about these things but you don't actually approve of them."

"Oh I approve all right. But the trouble with orgies is that people are only interested in the youngest ones there."

I pictured her sitting alone on a couch at the orgy dressed only in her faded pink underwear, a fag dangling forlornly from her lips, her fleshy knees knocking in the draught. She is gazing across to the far corner of the room where a slavering scrum has formed over the giggling, wriggling body of the hosts' youngest daughter.

Maybe there's something to be said for leading a sheltered life after all.

Debauchery

For the past couple of weeks I've been investigating the feasibility of writing a non-fiction book, something I've never tried before. I don't want to give away too many secrets at this stage as to the subject matter, but the working title is "A modest history of debauchery". The title should give you some idea of the subject matter.

At the moment I've got a lot more web-based research to do - about three month's solid - before I will be in a position to green light the project. However, if anyone out there has any academic or first-hand knowledge of the subject which they think might be relevant please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'm particularly interested in ancient Greek and contemporary examples of deviant behaviour.

Rubbing salt into my wounds

I've been trying to get published for far longer than I care to remember.

I wish I had a pound for every submission I've made to Jonathan Cape, Harvill Secker, Chatto and Windus and Vintage over the years. If I did I'd have enough money to start my own publishing company. All I've actually got is enough form rejection slips to line the walls of my study so that it is now fully compliant with building insulation standard BS 5422:2001. At least I won't freeze this winter as I toil over my next masterpiece.

All these publishing companies are members of the giant Random House group. And the curious thing is, although they don't think I'm a good enough writer to be published by any of their imprints, they do think I'm good enough to review the books they actually do publish. I know this because some of their publicists have taken to writing to the Pundy House and offering me free books to review on this blog.

Sadly I'm too busy with my next magnum opus to take up their offers. Too busy also to explain my refusal in detail.

So whenever I receive a request for a review I've started sending them form rejection slips. On headed notepaper. Their headed notepaper.

I might freeze to death as a result but at least I'll die with a smile on my face.

Second thoughts

When I sat down at the keyboard this morning I had already mapped out in my mind the arguments I would marshal in support of another typically downbeat thesis propounding the futility of blogging as a mechanism for any aspiring writer who wishes to reach a wider audience.

I planned to begin my exigesis by explaining, in the starkest possible terms, that the best any ingenue with literary aspirations can hope to achieve in this medium is to reach out to a small circle of similarly unrequited, slightly desperate, albeit desperately nice, publishing virgins.

And just as I was about to begin my assault on my readers' senses my fingers froze above the keyboard.

Two things happened to undermine the certainty of my proposition.

Firstly, I found myself wondering why I appeared to dislike nice people so much.

Was it because, I wondered, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, this seething mass of niceness is to a woman a body of such relentless optimism, repeatedly taking issue in the Comments section of my blog, with my own easy pessimism? Could it possibly be the case, in other words, that I was wrong in my enduring negativity?

And that thought led me to question exactly why was I so reluctant to be drawn into the circle of aspiring writers that has gradually evolved into a sort self-sustaining life-support sytem, a double helix safety net woven out of the DNA of all those nice-but-unpublished would-be JK Rowlings drifting hopefully around the blogosphere?

In search of an answer I looked back on my own long and undistinguished career as an unpublished author whose literary achievement reached its apogee with a mildly encouraging rejection slip from Secker & Warburg circa 1973.

Nostalgically I recalled my long-forgotten youthful determination to dedicate myself to my muse. My naive resolve to remain unrecognised and neglected for as long as it took, a lonely genius starving in a garret, a martyr to my art, bravely churning out manuscripts that no-one would read until after my death, when my brilliance would finally be recognised by a remorseful, not to say repentant, world. Never mind the fact that in all the years since I have never once set foot inside a garret. And the nearest I've ever come to starving is on those rare occasions when I've been late home for a meal.

No. Reluctantly I have been forced to conclude that my dislike of nice people has a less idealistic cause. Envy. Because I have looked into my heart and I know, despite the facade, I am not one of them. Ah well. No-one's perfect I suppose and some of us are more imperfect than others.

So on reflection, if you are an aspiring writer looking for help with your vocation my advice to you would be to seek out the comfort of like-minded strangers. There's a load of them listed on the blogroll beside this post. They're without exception a nice bunch and their support may be just what you need to clear the next hurdle in your writing career.

I said at the beginning of this post that there were two things that gave me pause for thought. While I was vacillating over what I was going to say at the beginning of this post I wandered off into the blogosphere in search of inspiration. And I found it too - right here. Not for the first time the estimable L Lee Lowe stopped me right in my tracks. Lee has recently published online her YA fantasy novel "Mortal Ghost" and already it's been downloaded more than a thousand times. A thousand times! That's incredible.

In fact, it's more than incredible - it's truly inspirational. What it means is that at long last the internet is delivering on its early promise and that anyone can become a real, proper, widely-read writer without being forced to find a traditional publisher.

So if you have the talent and are prepared to work hard - and maybe use your blog to get some invaluable feedback and support - there really are no barriers left any more.

And that should give you a nice warm feeling. Just like it gives me.

Freedom of thought

My return to active Blogging means giving birth to some of the darker thoughts that have been incubating in my fetid brain these past few months. Thanks to the untrammelled freedom of speech we enjoy in the blogosphere pretty much anything I dredge up from those dark recesses can be exposed to the light of day at the touch of a keyboard. That's because these days freedom of thought is pretty much the same thing as freedom of expression. The thought is father to the Post.

And that's dangerous. Because ideas are dangerous. They always have been of course, but in the past they were a little harder to disseminate.

It goes without saying that ideas come from people. Imagine how different the world would be if Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot, George Bush, Jesus or Muhammad, to take a few random examples, had kept their ideas to themselves. Of course, demagogues by their very nature never do keep ideas to themselves. It's only well-bred, reasonable people like me who have the decency to keep their more outlandish thoughts to themselves, being seen and not heard, refraining from making waves, impeccably not scaring the horses.

I guess Hitler, a master of propaganda, would have been a brilliant blogger. George Bush, well, maybe his grasp of the English language has prevented him from using this means of attack. He is obliged to use more direct action. Soldiers with guns are more loquacious, though not necessarily more persuasive, especially when they don't speak the language, in any sense of the word, of the people they are trying to convert.

The ironic thing is, although I am a firm believer in freedom of speech - I will defend to the death your right to express the most repulsive of views - when it comes to blogging I actually practice a rigid form of self-censorship. That's because it seems to me that that the vast majority of my readers are in fact bloggers who are nice, middle-class people, and I for one have no wish to offend them gratuitously. To do so would be like farting aloud in church. And, oh, I do so want to be one of them. A nice, middle-class blogger. Or at least that part of me that remains that little working-class boy from Tilbury, Essex does.

The irony is, of course, that the "nice" middle-classes certainly don't need protection from any puny thoughts or ideas I may propound. The "nice" middle-classes are far more robust than that. The reality is that "nice" is a supremely dangerous characteristic and not at all the same as "good". Indeed, the nice middle-classes in this country have ruthlessly managed to annexe all the important levers of power - like Parliament, the BBC, and the judiciary - largely through their very "niceness". Amazingly, even though I am well aware that the middle classes are indeed the masters now and pretty much impregnable, I still go out of my way not to offend them. As a result I pick the subjects of my posts, and the way I treat them, extremely fastidiously and thereby tamely yield to my readers' niceness. And just in case I should ever think of straying outspokenly out of line and causing offence to the status quo there exists a vociferous minority of bloggers who are much less reticent in their criticism but equally effective in their restraining influence. A rough, rowdy, ill-spoken bunch of self-appointed policemen armed with flamethrowers. And since I have no wish to be burnt at my posts, so to speak, I remain politely uncontroversial. This capitulation on my part I would characterize as abject moral cowardice, and I am not proud of what I have done. None of my writing heroes would have acted so spinelessly.

So, for me at least, in the past freedom of thought on this blog has not been not quite the same thing as freedom of speech. The main casualty of this conflict has been, as in any war, the truth.

All that, though, is about to change.

Better than sex

Sex is such an important component of the human condition that that it is bound to figure prominently in the preoccupations of a writer. Indeed, for me there are only seven things in life that are more important than sex. Here's my list:

1 Excavating the perfect verb from the barren wasteland of my brain


2 Igniting the perfect sentence from the arid dross that blankets my thoughts


3 Dragging the perfect paragraph from the wreckage of my tangled sentences


4 Building the perfect chapter from the rubble of my misshapen paragraphs


5 Knitting the perfect first draft from the patchwork of my chapters


6 Throttling the adverbs in my re-writes as I unknot my tortured plot

7 Watching golf on the telly

I hope no-one reads this

Who was it said "The only thing worse than blogging is not blogging"? Actually, I think it was me. It's rubbish, of course. Such is the state of the world that there are a million things at least worse than not blogging. In fact, now I'm back make that a million and one.

Anyway, I'm not really back. This is not a cause for celebration. I'm still sick of the sound of my own voice. My problems haven't gone away. I don't have anything to say. There is no purpose behind this blog. It won't be regular. It ain't aimed at any readers.

This time round I'm not going to try and build up a regular readership. So, I won't be obsessively checking my stats nor fretting over all those occasional visitors who can't be bothered to link to me. Especially, I won't be replying to Comments, if there are any. Not that I did before.

What I will be doing is recycling all the old stuff I wrote about before. In other words me. So the blog will be boring but at least it will be green. And no egos will be killed in the making of this monologue - I'm too vain to really hurt myself.. Don't expect any surprises either. All the old favourites will be there - depression, failure, hopelessness, feeble gags, navel-gazing, self-loathing and doubt. If you're a like-minded blogger welcome aboard. If you're a normal person, look away now.

It's just me trying to get a few thoughts together in public as I work on my next novel, Mummy's Boy.

No big deal. Nothing to get excited about. In fact, I'd rather you kept it quiet. Just between you and me.

Our dirty little secret.

This is why we do it

If anyone wants to know why I write this is the definitive, joyous, life-affirming, beautiful answer.

I received an e-mail this morning from someone I don't know, from where I have no idea. It reads:

"Hi there :)

I loved your novel and was wondering if I could be placed on the list for a paperback copy?

Kind Regards,

Anna ******"

That's as good as any acceptance letter from any agent, better than a review in the New York Times.

I've found a new reader and made a connection. There is no better feeling in life. It almost makes me want to cry but I'm going to laugh and cheer instead.

Finding my way

The most important thing in getting my life back on track, it seems to me, is to resume work on my novel Mummy's Boy.

To help me do this I need to do two things. Firstly, I'm going to set up another blog dedicated to the work in progress. I'll post the first draft up chapter by chapter. This mechanism has two benefits. It will act as a catalyst to the creative process, allowing me to measure and discipline the amount of work I do on the book. It also allows for feedback from readers, something that proved so helpful with the re-writes of A Half Life of One.

Apart from all the external pressures that have kept me from writing in the past couple of months (okay, a month's holiday in New Zealand wasn't really ressure) I am a little concerned that the book - which tells the story of a kid growing up whose life increasingly comes to be centred around his mother - is in danger of turning into yet another "misery memoir". I must avoid that outcome at all costs. The book isn't about misery for a start. Life is wonderful even when it is challenging. It's more about the way the balance changes as children grow up. In this case, the change is pretty dramatic.

I guess I need to make sure too that the novel isn't a "memoir". Not a straight retelling of my life story. I think the best way to fictionalise the story is to let the characters really develop in an untrammelled way and set my imagination free.

Whatever the answer, the only way to solve the problem is to get back writing. With that aim in mind I have decided that my new life starts here, today, now. Whatever happens, in the next twenty-four hours I'm going to write another chapter.

That prospect is both terrifying and wonderfully exciting.

All at sea

I've mentioned in the past how I reached a very low ebb in my life when a business I owned got into serious trouble. This was back in the early nineties when the price of oil fell below 10 dollars a barrel and work dried up. Every cloud has a silver lining of course, and my novel A Half Life of One was born out of the experience.

Well, I kept that business going - I had no choice - and gradually things improved as the dollar price of a barrel of oil rose and work in the industry recovered.

Last week I sold the business. It's a pretty good business now, with a good reputation, a great workforce and a strong order book. I'm rather proud of it in fact. Negotiating the sale was a pretty emotional event for me, and not just because of the legal and accounting morass I had to wade through to complete the deal. My hand shook as I signed the sales deeds. At last I was free. A huge weight fell from my shoulders. I stumbled back into the light.

I feel like a prisoner who's been set free after years of incarceration. Disoriented. A little scared. Angry. Bitter. All those lost years.

It's going to take me a while to get my bearings. I'm a little shell-shocked right now. Yet again I'm at a crossroads in my life. I've lost my sense of direction. That first step on the road back...I don't even know if it's the right road. There are no signposts.

Not for the first time in my life I'm all at sea.

The Last King of Scotland

The recent release of humorously-titled movie "The Last King of Scotland" reminds me of a true story that has haunted my dreams for years.

The film in part purports to tell the tale of Idi Amin, the murderous dictator who ruled Uganda between 1971 and 1979. In the West Amin was considered something of a buffoon. His self-styled title "His Excellency President for Life, Field Marshall Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Sea, and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular", probably didn't help. In his own country he was regarded with abject terror by all his subjects.

Amnesty International reckons he was responsible for the death of 500,000 of his people. He waged campaigns of sectarian violence mainly against the Acholi and Lango tribes. He is best known in this country for his persecution of Ugandan Asians, mainly Christians, Hindus and Muslims, many of whom subsequently came to Britain where they played a significant role in our cultural and commercial development.

The story I remember depicts a particularly evil massacre that took place under Amin's rule. Readers of a nervous disposition might want to look away now. You can safely pick up this post again in its final paragraph.

Several hundred prisoners are marched into a football stadium by a large number of Amin's troops. There is a carnival atmosphere. The soldiers are in a good mood, joking and making bets. The prisoners are made to stand in line. The prisoner second from the end is handed a club. He is instructed to kill the person on his left with the club and pass it to the person next to him who will repeat the procedure. Anyone who refuses will meet with a painful death. No-one refuses.

I picture myself in the line, standing round about the middle. The sun is beating down. I hear the first blow, like an egg cracking. I have only a few minutes to live. I consider the fine theological conundrum as to whether or not when I kill the man standing next to me my soul will be in a state of mortal sin. If so I am condemning myself to a lifetime in hell. Piss and shit start to trickle down my shaking legs. I am sweating in the sweltering stadium but I am cold. I look at the man on my left, trying to gauge the thickness of his skull and where exactly I will hit him to ensure a merciful death. The man on my right looks weak, he is crying, his spirit is broken. I curse my luck.

The soldiers all around are laughing and cheering. There is no blood on their hands, they are innocent of any crime. They admire and evaluate each downward sweep of the club, the spectacular eruption of brains. They are as knowledgeable and appreciative and as boistrous as spectators at a baseball match.

The man beside me hands me the club. It is sticky and slippery with blood. I take a deep breath. It is hard to breathe. I can hear the soldiers jeering far away. I remember how I used to hold a cricket bat at school. I look my companion in the eyes as I raise the club above my head. It is too late to think of my family, the world I am about to leave behind. I concentrate on the job in hand.

The film stars Forest Whitaker and is directed by Kevin Macdonald from a novel by Giles Foden. It glosses over Amin's atrocities and concentrates on a fictional love story. It has not been a critical or commercial success. But I guess things move on, and that the relative failure of the film is now the real tragedy of this story.

I don't give a fuck...

...what anyone says, the blogosphere is wonderful.

About eight years ago I was at my wits' end. My business was going bankrupt. I had personal guarantees out for more than a million pounds. I'd put the house up as security. My wife and two young sons we going to be thrown out onto the streets. I couldn't think straight. I lost nearly two stones in weight. My hair started falling out. I couldn't sleep at night. The only thing that stopped me committing suicide was the financial mess I would leave behind.

To keep myself sane I barricaded myself in a cupboard and started writing A Half Life of One. One painful word at a time. Eventually I finished the book. Eventually, miraculously, the financial crisis passed.

A couple of years later I revised the book and sent it off to various agents, with predictable results. No matter. The book had already served its purpose - it had kept me sane. I wasn't too bothered by rejection. I shoved the book into a drawer and forgot about it.

Then I discovered blogging. Eventually I resurrected the manuscript and put it online. Several people read it and kindly gave me some valuable feedback. I re-wrote it yet again and send it off once more. Again rejection followed. No matter. By now the book had taken on a modest life of its own. The site gets around fourteen visits a day. Every day.

When I checked the stats recently I was amused to see that somebody in Hunan in China was reading it at the same time as someone from the Army Information Management Directorate in Illinois. Three different worlds meeting in the most unlikely way.

When you think what the book's fate would have been before the invention of the internet I think it's all rather miraculous.

A bit of rough

You'll recall that when I went up to university in the sixties I kind of went off the rails. No doubt there're lots of reasons why that happened but whatever the cause the net result was that I drank a lot and chased a lot of women. In a way it was kind of what you did back then, especially if you wanted to be a writer. I imagine it was our idea of pursuing a Bohemian lifestyle. I expect it's all different now. People want a career and to earn lots of money, so they need to get a good degree and they work hard to make sure they do. They don't have so much time for playing around. I guess that's how it works now, anyway.

The thing about university back then - at least in the UK - was that it was populated overwhelmingly by the middle classes. Looking back, I don't think that while I was there I met a single student who had been to a state school like mine, although there must have been some around, lurking in the shadows. Everybody I met seemed to have attended a "public" (that is, a fee-paying) school. Coming from a poor, working class background I was kind of dazzled by my fellow students. They had a certain glamour, an air of superiority, call it breeding if you like. The women were especially exotic, almost like film stars, equally desirable, and, in some cases, just as unattainable.

I hadn't thought about it before now but I wonder what these glamorous young women must have thought about me back then - if they thought about me at all that is. In those days I was thin, six foot tall, had long blonde hair and - I hope I'm not being too immodest here - was quite good-looking. But, although I tried to hide it, I was undeniably working class. I had no polish, didn't really speak their language, had no prospects and few of the social graces. Nevertheless, I had no trouble attracting women, so I must have had some quality they found attractive. And no, it wasn't what you're thinking either. Unfortunately. Maybe it was the novelty value, the thrill of possessing an amusing divertimento before the real business of finding a suitable partner began. Or more likely it was the temporary thrill of going out with a bit of rough.

So perhaps that was me back in the swinging sixties. A little bit of rough bobbing around on a sea of alcohol. If it was, well, I've no complaints. Worse things happen at sea.

Blogging will be light today...

as the estimable Frank Wilson always says. This is because I am trying to simplify my life. To facilitate this long-planned objective I fixed up a meeting with one of my lawyers yesterday at 3.00pm. The meeting was schedule to last twenty minutes. To be on the safe side I paid for thirty minutes on the parking meter. I got out of the meeting at 8.00pm last night.

As a result I'm way behind with everything and need to catch up fast.

Ten Books...

...I've started, failed to finish and feel guilty as hell about. They're scattered about the house, permanent and quietly malevolent reminders of a thousand broken resolutions, talismans of my enduring ignorance.

1 Ulysses - James Joyce
2 Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison
3 Wide Sargasso Sea - Jean Rhys
4 Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
5 Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
6 Lanark - Alexander Gray
7 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
8 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
9 The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
10 The Sea - John Banville

And ten more that are also lying around but will never get finished because for various reasons I really didn't like them:

1 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
2 Shame - Salman Rushdie
3 A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Maria Lewycka
4 Atonement - Ian McEwan
5 The Quantity Theory of Insanity - Will Self
6 Why Read the Classics? - Italo Calvino
7 Oscar and Lucinda - Peter Carey
8 Possession - A.S. Byatt
9 A Family Madness - Thomas Keneally
10 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown. This one's really in a category of its own. I hated it.

Actually, there's dozens more lying around that I've started and been unable to finish but those are the the most recent ones. When I was younger I forced myself to finish every book I started but now, well, maybe I value my time a little more. Or maybe my polymath dreams are over, charred embers on the altar of experience.

Dammit, no, that's not the reason. The reason is that mostly these books failed to live up to the publishers' hype and I resented being conned. Not really the best frame of mind for reading a book. Maybe one day I'll give them another go. But don't bet on it.