A Few Things

The Booker list hasn't generated much excitement that I've seen, Scott Pack's likes Sarah Waters (so, it is just me!), whilst Ready Steady Book can't work up much interest at all, but has noticed there are two "Mother's Milk" books out this year - who'd have thought a Red Hot Chilli Peppers album would be so influential? I'm always interested in titles, and lets be honest, all of this year's list are unimaginative cliches. I was far more excited by Parameter Magazine's Poetry Soccer Six Official Sticker album, which dropped through the door the other day, with such gems as "the midfield duo of Charles Baudelaire and Stephane Mallarme is high on flair but short on grit", and "T.S. Eliot can seem ponderous in defence." The literature/football crossover is a rare one, and should be encouraged. Having to sort out emergency accomodation at a local cattery for a friend's cat this morning, I was tickled to find that cat's have their owners' surnames for the purpose of vaccinations and boarding. After the third phone call asking, not for my name, but the cats, I felt like her blooming P.A. I just watched the film "Far From Heaven" which was on last week; it was a little too pleased with itself, but was sumptuous to look at, and extremely well written. Interesting that fellow Manchester blogger, Elizabeth Baines inadvertently "outed" herself as writer of "The Tart of Fiction", because of changes to Blogger. It brings up a few questions about both your veracity and your objectiveness, whether you go anonymous or not, but as she says, it's got a long history. There's also something to be said for whatever your "public name" is, becomes your real name in many ways. I've actually just written a story about this subject, funnily enough, and my older story "Martin Amis Lives Upstairs" is a treatment of a similar theme - with more than a nod to Amis's own excelent "Career Move." Just wanted to mention that new literary magazine "Libertine" is launched at Central Library on Friday 29th September. I've been doing some more print-on-demand experiments with Lulu - a turn around time of 10 days from uploading a manuscript to receiving the printed copies from Spain was pretty good. At the moment I'm just using the service for "proofs" and its pretty cost effective to do so, around £5.00 inc. postage for a 100 page black and white manuscript. I just found out that you can get the complete New Yorker on DVD, how tempting is that? I wonder if my local library runs to it? This month's Verberate has an "all woman cast," and Verberate organiser Zoe Lambert deserves supporting as one of three writers showcased by Comma Press, in their next short story anthology, early in October in Manchester and Sheffield. She's also got a story in the current Lamport Court, available from the Cornerhouse in Manchester.