Wait!

Other people will be far better than me at attending the lit fest. I went to the Manchester Blog Awards/Verberate on Monday, which was mostly very enjoyable - as always I'm left a little cold by the Speakeasy types who did the second set. I felt the blog readings were an enjoyable take on this whole thing. Blogs aren't books, and neither is necessarily good read live, but both the Airport Diaries and 43 bus readings were done well. Its coincided with a busy week at work, a conference on Monday, then a workshop on Tuesday, both involving Peter Saville, once Factory Records cover designer, now Manchester's "brand" manager. I get the feeling the city council wanted a logo, and what they got instead was a dialogue. They may not realise it, but the city has got the better out of that deal. Dialogue being hard. I felt quite inspired - but also a little cynical - in that working for that same council you get to see how far the rhetoric is removed from the reality; its a totally hierarchical organisation, that can at times seem opaque in the extreme in how it decides things. Factory records, as he reminded us, happened without the great and the good even realising it was around; and I'm not convinced that anything has changed - at times the city seems determined to develop the world's biggest bar crawl, and sod anything that gets in its way. But at other times - with the Manchester Food and drink festival, the literature festival etc. - one is more optimistic. I still know I'm far more likely to find the future in the Northern quarter or in an independent dive venue like the Britons Protection, Big Hands or the Star and Garter than anything badged with the words "Manchester International Festival", and that is a gap that needs to be bridged. As my homework from the Peter Saville event I'm meant to send a "viral" email out to three or four key people about the city's dreadful "official" websites. Not entirely sure how I phrase that one. But then again, you have to commend those who have raised expectations in this way; and only hope that they are capable of meeting them. As Saville said, a brand is about values, not a logo, and if you don't live up to the values you espouse then all the money in the world won't make a difference. I've not had a chance to "listen again" to Radio 4's "original modern" stories yet, but that's the other thing about festivals - half the year you are sat in wondering what to do, the other half you're frantically trying to catch half of the interesting things going on.

One Day in history

If you only write one "blog entry" this year than today's the day - a record of "one day in history."

Good Poem

I enjoyed "I'm in Love with a German Film Star" by Todd Swift in the latest Jacket online magazine, (its the 3rd poem down) particularly the line "I’m filled with an unbearable urge to be 32 always and to marry a chick named Miss Miss. " It reminds me of Ashbery in its pop-love of American culture, particularly the movies. It's got a couple of levels of the nostalgic in it, the reference to the Passions song of the title, which means something to people around 40, (and in itself was a nostalgic paeon), but also in the language, despite the reference to Bush and Cheney, in the poem, it harks back to more innocent times. Nostalgia's not always bad, you see, its just recognising it's there.

Swimming or Drowning

I've been a bit out of sorts this week, slow fuse, little things making me annoyed, and I seem to be making all the wrong kind of choices - mad ideas, that seem just plain stupid the next day. I guess you make poor judgements when you're feeling tense, or stressed, or simply frustrated, and its a combination of all three really. The warm glow of my 3 weeks off is in the distant past, and I think I need a few short weeks before Christmas. Maybe I just need to get away - I've only had a couple of short breaks in the last couple of years. But you also make poor decisions when you don't understand how the world works: and I think that's part of it - I'm a bit isolated creatively, this blog aside, and I guess every creative person sometimes thinks "why am I doing this?" I think I began an odyssey when I started my creative writing course in 1997, but its one that's left me no nearer land than before, and, I don't think I've learnt that much from the journey either. Ho hum. Perhaps I'm destined to remain in this state of flux, maybe its my natural state? Whatever...but making the correct decisions artistically, as well as commercially, is kind of critical. Any project's going to take time, effort, energy. My latest on the bus wheeze was to write an autobiographical novel/memoir, "Comprehensive", about my last year at a school that didn't really have much idea what to do with someone bright and creative. I could name the chapters after the timetable "General Studies" "Home Economics" "English Literature" rather than go through things chronologically. Then, I thought, lets call it "Incomprehensible" - which my last year at school pretty much was - but that would kind of ruin the earlier conceit. Perhaps I should get lofty - and ironic - and call it "A Comprehensive Education" - and then what does this say politically? I do agree with comprehensive schools, just not the crap, dumbed down, well meaning but useless one I went to. And would it have to be a memoir? I don't really like them. I'd prefer to write it as a novel. You can play around with things a bit more - but there wouldn't be much point in me making things up. And then again, I hate nostalgia, I see how bad it is. I don't think Manchester's had a successful breakout band since it was codified on screen in "24 Hour Party People" - falling foul of Liverpool's disease isn't really what the "original modern" city should be all about, is it? I'm only mentioning this, because I'm going to a couple of events next week where Peter Saville will be talking about his vision for the city. I get the feeling he wants them to look deeper, whereas they probably just wanted a "logo." Yet, the first thing to be badged "original modern" at the literature festival, stories written in and around odd locations, for broadcast on Radio 4, seems, on the surface, an entirely nostalgic idea, with some rather predictable choices of writer. But catch them on Radio 4 next week, or "listen again" here for 7 days after.I'll be interested to see whether Saville's "original modern" idea will survive the work that attaches to it. I have my own idea, but in a week of poor judgements its probably not a good idea to run with it, which is to commission a range of local bands to produce a piece of "experimental" music for an Original Modern Music CD. What I mean by "experimental" I'd leave up to them. It could be an interesting concept. Or it might just be another bad idea. I wasn't asked to contribute to The Burgess Project, but anyway, I'd already written my piece, a few years ago, a poem for a projected series of poems about "heroes" (I think I got as far as Anthony Burgess and Yoko Ono before abandoning it...) In the spirit of not knowing a good idea from a bad one here it is...

Anthony Burgess

The novelist is Mancunian
And he spits out the words
Takes tea with Lew Grade
And agrees to "do" Jesus.
He'd get a kick from the sanskrit
And papyrus, this linguologist,
Gasping for a beer on the road into Burma.
We look on at our life, make do with the naming -
But not the great writer,
Has still to wrestle posterity down
Finger reputation before the last breath.
I would burn all the books, burn them -
Let him stay on in memory
Kicking and screaming his way from the music
Ornating his pages with Joycean flourish
Out with his droogs drinking moloko
And never in need of rhyme for orange.

How I Write

Films show how writers write in a formulaic way - witness "Sylvia" with draft after draft of poems thrown over the poor girl's head, most missing the waste paper bucket. I kind of think a writers' writing methods are a little like a confessional, between him/her and their maker. Yet if God had not wanted writers to talk about their methods, he wouldn't have invented literary festivals. The Cheltenham Festival is celebrated in todays Times, with the secrets of the writing room. What a wonderfully weird bunch they are! Mainly, I confess, because they use pens, in Helen Simpson's case, an £8 a bottle-of-ink, Mont Blanc, THAT explains why she's never written a novel, too darn expensive. There are quite a few long suffering spouses (and, one presumes, employees) hidden a little off stage, from Marina Lewycka's "lovely husband" bringing porridge, to "that wonderful woman" who types up John Mortimer's incomprehensible scrawl. And they use a strange array of paper as well. Say what you want about Microsoft Word, but its a great democratiser. At least William Boyd is honest enough to say he's too old a dog to be taught new (word processing) tricks, though I'm pretty sure that before I wrote direct to screen, I'd sometimes write direct to typewriter. Simon Armitage is only a little bit older than me, so I was a bit surprised that he's "awestruck" by his computer, and has real problems when it doesn't. But then, even I write (most of) my poetry on paper. You kind of still need to see the crossings out, I think that's what it is.

Football Crazy

I like the Guardian's ball-by-ball commentary of sport; and this is a gem, referring to tonight's performance against Croatia as a "team of plucky but technically inept autobiography-writers." How right he is. All this extraneous activity, of course, isn't supposed to affect their "main thing", yet even someone so at ease with the media as Beckham, didn't see the footballing heights in the end. So, what can you say about Wayne "Five Book" Rooney? Has his stumbling form coincided with the book deal? Yes, its true, you can say its got nothing to do with it; but its like when a club, company or council are in strife, its the small things that make a difference to "morale" and "application." However, I may break the habit of a lifetime and buy a sporting biography, that of Paul McGrath; not only was he the most consistently good play ever to wear an Aston Villa shirt, but he was the tormented soul's tormented soul. Of course, McGrath, who has had more in his life to write about than most, waited until after he retired before he hired his ghost writer. I think what tonight's game highlighted was an old footballing truth, that decline can be disguised, but never ignored. I think England have probably been in decline since Beckham moved to Real Madrid and Paul Scholes retired, yet with the emergence of Wayne Rooney we had the perfect teenage diversion. Wiser commentators at the time said that Sven was a little brave putting all his faith in a teenager, but wiser than we knew, perhaps Sven realised that was all we really had - that and the discarded Beckham. England, for some reason have never taken European Championship qualifying all that seriously - after all, how valuable can a tournament be that we've never won? Tonight's result was part of a pattern that began a long while ago, but was cemented with that defeat by Northern Ireland, and confirmed by the performances in the World Cup. The Chelseafication of the team probably hasn't helped either - since this club of millionaire heroes has created its own new elite system, without, perhaps, the much undervalued austerity methods of Alex Ferguson. England, 4th in the world in Fifa's ridiculously inept rankings, is a team in decline. Publishers take note.

Wanna watch the Booker? Think again.

Its always been a rare guilty pleasure for me, watching the Booker Prize, the one unadulterated bit of TV-lit all year, you sit down with a glass of red, throwing olives and pringles at the tv screen. With multichannel TV, the old "rush" to meet the TV deadline shouldn't be a problem for the BBC, just bung it on BBC4. So what's going on tonight?

"The announcement of the winner of the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction will air on the BBC 10 O'Clock News. This will be followed by coverage on BBC 2 Newsnight, BBC News 24 and BBC Radio 4 as well as interviews that will air around the world. BBC Radio 4's Today Programme has been airing pieces on the shortlisted authors throughout this week."

What went wrong? What happened to the live show? And god forbid there's some real news tonight. The TV ceremony WAS the Booker in my mind. Otherwise what's the point of the rest of the country getting all worked up? As it stands its just a black tie do for the publishing industry. I seem to remember that everything from the Orange to the Turner gets a tv showing these days, leaning on the Booker example. So, I don't know who decided to pull it - but it's a shame. Remember, BBC, you're still angling for an increase on your licence fee...

But if I was a betting man, I'd not have a bet on the Booker this year, the best book will win, I guess, but whether it grabs the attention of the public is another matter. And that's got to be bad news for the retailers. Tower Records, a "long tail" retailer of American legend, is no more, and if it's gone, with its knowledgeable staff and wide-ranging back catalogue, what hope for HMV etc? The Oasis greatest hits apart, there's not many "big" records due this Christmas, and back catalogue exploitation has probably now reached its ultimate: a 2CD "Deluxe Edition" of Abba's "Arrival" album. The bottom of this barrel looks thoroughly scraped. Reading Simon Reynolds enthusiastic history of post-punk, Rip it Up and Start Again, he makes the point that in the late 70s, early 80s, albums were deleted so quickly by the majors, that you always had to look forward. Indie singles could sell 20-30000 copies, creating a genuine alternative to the mainstream. The massive availability of music via the internet doesn't really mean that much - nobody's pushing the envelope anymore, or if they are, its only their acolytes who are buying. And where music has gone, you'd be a fool, or a shareholder in HMV, not to think that books and DVDs will follow. Is YouTube, bought today by Google, the MTV? Or could it morph into a paid-content Chain-with-no-name? It's certainly an alternative distribution medium, as is print-on-demand for small presses. Just as the record industry of the late 70s required massive budgets, advances and sales to make money, the current film and publishing industries are wedded to the same. If this Tower is Babel, then can you hear the lapping of the waters all around?

CODA: Kiran Desai is the winner.

The best novel of the last 25 years is...

The Observer has asked 150 writers for their best novel in English (excluding Americans, how very Booker!) since 1980. "Disgrace" by Coetzee is a good winner, (though his early "Life and Times of Michael K is surely the more adventurous book) and with Amis's "Money" second, and Burgess's "Earthly Powers" third, I can't really complain about the list. Fascinating that Ishiguro's least loved novel, "The Unconsoled" makes the list, and a sense of recentness might explain why McEwan's greatest achievement is seen as "Atonement," the most likeable of his novels, but not his best. Alan Warner's "Morvern Callar" and "On the Black Hill" by Bruce Chatwin seem conspicuously absent from the longer list. I'm interested in what the top ten says about what makes a "lasting novel"? History... in the case of McEwan, "Remains of the Day" and Penelope Fitzgerald, big sweep books in Burgess and Rushdie, and, in different ways, the writing in the John McGahern and Martin Amis; and perhaps, a little more nostalgia than is good for us overall.

Connecting Things

I bumped into Andrew Biswell in the Cornerhouse last night, his very readable biography of Anthony Burgess is just out in paperback he tells me. He had a story in the latest Lamport Court, which I enjoyed, though its probably fair to say its straining to be part of a longer piece. Typically, another alumni of Lamport Court, Max Dunbar was also there. Its not that Manchester's such a small town, just that the Oxford Road provides a perfect cultural strip from the town hall and library at one end, down to the university's and the Whitworth at the other. Either that or I go out for a drink too much. I'd just been reading what Martin Amis had to say about Burgess in his essay collection "The War Against Cliche"; I think Amis, probably uniquely amongst that generation of writers, saw Burgess as some kind of kindred spirit. Burgess was never that clubable a writer; perhaps being published later in life, he had grown out of a peer generation. Its somewhat odd coming up against Martin Amis as literary critic rather than literary titan, though the first at Oxford and the job as literary critic on the Spectator were obviously as important in his literary development as the real and adopted fathers of Kingsley and Bellow. Last week's Observer had an interview with him, and it was good that these days they occasionally send a woman to interview him, rather than the young turk male wannabes. Rachel Cooke teases out a few of his contradictions. "Mine aren't the sort of books that produce a consensus. It's why I don't win prizes", he says, which is one way of deflating the annual debate of the eighties and early nineties about whether Martin would be on the Booker list. (It happens with Scorsese and the Oscars even now.) I like the ending of the piece, where Martin has difficulty opening a screen door and his wife does it with practiced ease; if only because in comparing his books and his fathers, Martin always said that he felt his fathers books had too many people opening doors and his father thought his books had too few. Now we know why - don't write what you're not very good at! My copy of "The War Against Cliche" is a handsome American hardback - an increasing option when the quality of paper and binding in UK paperbacks is so abysmal. Last week was a very quiet National Poetry Day, as if the original idea has run out of steam. Can we put it to death, please? I was wondering if Andrew Motion had still some life in his laureateship, (it was for ten years if I remember correctly), but it goes on till 2009. More interestingly, I guess, the first Manchester Literature festival rolls in to town next week. Next Saturday's pairing of Nicholas Blincoe and Palestinian writer, Sahar Khalifeh, sounds interesting, and the Manchester Blog Awards with Verberate on 16th at Urbis should be as well. Highlight of this week was a musical one, Public Enemy at the opening night of the Warehouse Project. Though it wasn't probably like seeing them back in the day, for at least two thirds of the gig they were a still awesome sonic assault, playing classics such as "Fight the Power" "Don't Believe the Hype" and "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos." The gig was a little late for a school night, the place only letting people in from about 10.30 and Public Enemy coming on well after midnight. Its a superb venue, though, even if the sound was a bit muddy - with two rooms and a genuine chill out area (its called outside!) It was a mixed crowd, thirtysomethings, serious clubbers, and scallies. Let's say I imagine Collyhurst was a little empty on Thursday night. It had the genuine feel of somewhere edgy, and one can only imagine the vibe when they've 2000 clubbers getting down to some serious drum 'n' bass. I'd forgot how many great songs Public Enemy have got, just look at last year's Greatest Hits. Mine's mostly on vinyl, naturally. Manchester's always been a hip hop town, and the audience seemed pretty knowledgeable whatever their age.

The Metaphysicals

I just come across a rewriting of Andy Warhol's phrase, for the new "social software" world. Here, everybody will be famous for 15 people. I've not been able to trace who said it first, so sorry about that. I'm actually writing a story about this subject as well! (I'm writing a story about most things, at one time or another, it seems, but that's mainly because I start more than I finish, like a particularly badly prepared marathon runner.) I'm indebted to Baroque in Hackney, for pointing our A.S. Byatt's referencing John Donne, if only because for the last few months I've been ruminating on an essay called "Towards a new metaphysical poetry." Ms. Baroque makes the telling remark that "So much current, anecdotally-based poetry just seems tame and pale to me." Which sums up my own view, though because so much contemporary poetry is anecdotally-based, it sometimes seems that even this mild criticism is an attempt to stab the sickly beast to death, best to see if it fades away of its own illness. But what is "metaphysical poetry"? I remember my O Level English teacher struggling with any definition that made sense, particularly since the metaphysicals themselves, Donne, Herbert, Vaughn, Marvell etc. were all so very different. T.S. Eliot's words seems as valid as ever, that

“…thought to Donne was an experience; it modified his sensibility.”

But what would a new metaphysical poetry look like? We've not the religious backbone that underscored these writers (and those who have that backbone seem incapable of realising how it should be flexible, not rigid). Yet, prior to the romantic finding God in nature, the metaphysicals were finding nature (or life) in a "living" God. But are our writers looking for the metaphysical? I think they are. Compare these lines from Simon Armitage's first book "Zoom!"

“Heard the one about the guy from Heaton Mersey?

Wife at home, lover in Hyde, mistress

in Newton-le-Willows and two pretty girls

in the top grade at Werneth prep.”

With the last poem in his "Selected Poems" -:

“I looked for an end, for some dimension

to hold hard and resist. But I still exist.”

Anecdote replaced by the unfamiliar? I think so. And the metaphysical narrative that he applied recently to the the anniversary of the World Trade Centre attack, shows he's still looking in that direction. I'm not for a minute pretending this is Armitage's primary aim, he might well be horrified to be so analysed. I only use him as a familiar example: but I think it shows that whatever the merits of an anecdotal poetry are, they have limits - and it's not the romantic imagination that can be relied on to expand that range, but a metaphysical view of the world. Yet, we are either pragmatists (we work, we buy, we play, we consume), or fundamentalists (green, Christian, nationalistic) in our every day life. The metaphysical imagination seems to require a fundamental layering of our physical needs under our mental and psychological needs, so that we cannot address the one without the other. A new Ikea is hardly what we need.

So why did I begin with that quote about "famous for 15 people?" Perhaps because the internet is moving painfully, awkwardly, and not-all-that successfully, towards this "layering." It's no more than a pragmatic solution on the one hand - and has its own fundamentalists on the other. But given a "need", can it provide a "solution?" Though Donne was famous in his life, as Dean of St. Pauls, and particularly for his later religious poetry, the poems that now make his name along with those of Marvell and Herbert, to name just two, had the smallest of circulations whilst alive. "Famous for 15 people" indeed. And it makes me ask, that in the gap between the pragmatist and the fundamentalist, how wide can our circle of understanding be? Millions can enjoy "Crazy" by Gnarls Barkley, untold millions can be born into a religion that affects every aspect of their life; more copies of the Ikea catalogue can be distributed by the Bible, but both will sit on the shelves of their respective pragmatist and fundamentalist audience, flicked through, at a surface level. A metaphysical sensibility has its own limits; perhaps a micro-audience of 15 people. Don't turn that dial.

And

Went to see the Onions and the Amelies at the Late Room last night. Good songs all round. Which meant I missed the Libertine Magazine launch. For no apparent reason, I've just started writing a comic strip. Don't worry, I've not suddenly decided I'm a great artist, its amazing what you can do with Paint Shop Pro and Microsoft Publisher. I might think about putting them online at some point, but like a lot of my projects, I'm not sure yet whether its just me being deliberately random in what I do, or something that will evolve. It made a nice change. Less words you see, less words.

Not Feeling Very Anything

I'm not feeling very anything at the moment. I feel I have some emotion blockage thats probably like an antibody, stopping me feel too strongly about anything - and it's probably because there's a real frustration about lots of different things. Lots of things are annoying me of course, but I've obviously got a failsafe mechanism at the moment that is refusing to get more than mildly annoyed by them at all. This morning I got off the bus at the university and walked past fifty gridlocked buses (at least) - taking over an hour to get to work in total - all because of the Labour Party Conference. The City Council's been congratulating itself on getting the big event into town, yet God knows how many thousands of people were late into work today; whilst the government is "going green" with the fashion. Nobody ever seems to go green by staying at home these days, it all involves a conference, preferably somewhere distant. But I'm hardly worked up about these contradictions. I didn't even get worked up about the posters for the Stop the War Coalition. Amongst the things that people were marching against were: that we shouldn't go to war on Iran, and that we should abandon Trident. Since the only realistic reason we would go to war on Iran is because they were developing nuclear weapons there's an absurd collation of ideas that means that those marching (or at least those writing the posters) are in favour of an independent nuclear deterrent for Iran, and against an independent nuclear detterent for the UK. I know it's supposed to be the sign of a first class mind to hold too contradictory ideas simultaneously, but let this be the exception that proves the rule. And I'm still not that bothered. I'm not even sure I can work out whether I prefer Blair, Brown or Cameron or some yet to be genetically engineered hybrid of the three (let's call such a beast Milliband). As one's work becomes increasingly Kafkaesque (will the project be extended before it's ended - which sounds like a Lenny Kravitz song) I'm not sure which conclusion I want here either. In the week that anti-ageist legislation is coming into focus, reading about the young Nick Laird and others being shortlisted for the "under 30" Dylan Thomas award should make me feel old, but doesn't. Everyone of my age seems to write nostalgically about the seventies/eighties - Badly Drawn Boy's new song, David Mitchell's latest novel, for instance. Puzzled at my own lack of nostalgia, I found this from a song I recorded, oh, God, it must have been 1994, called "J. Swift Remembers."

J. Swift Remembers playing drainies
Watney’s Party Six, out of reach at parties
Should have been asleep
Drainpipe jeans, hair cropped to the skin
Ra-ra skirted ingénues, bubble perms

...it begins - there I've done that. No need to write a novel about it now.

Summer Endings

Yesterday's Cohesion Live festival in Platt Fields was a qualified success. The weather was glorious and Platt Fields is always a great location. However, there were the longest beer queues I've seen for a number of years, and you have to wonder how we still can't get these simple things right? Musical highlight were an awesomely full-powered Elbow, getting better with every year, almost unbelievably. The rest of the main stage line-up was less stellar, pleasant rather than worth the admission fee, though each artist, from Graham Coxon to I Am Kloot, had its own following. I'd never seen Badly Brawn Boy, who drew things to a close, and he did all the things that had put me off seeing him before. His band were like a second-rate pick-up band who'd only been phoned-in the songs the day before, and he spent most of the stop-start set berating them. His streeturchin curmudgeonliness was as charmless as Robbie Williams at his arrogant best, and you got the feeling people would say, "oh, but that's Damon". His voice, never the finest of instruments was okay, but always vulnerable. I guess most disappointing were the new songs, all mid-paced, like something from a late-seventies Wings album. The best tunes of the night were those that weren't even his - Sister Sledge, Madonna and Taja Sevelle - and you realised that unlike those other riff-thieves, Oasis and White Stripes, who steal and then make it their own, Badly Drawn Boy draws attention to his postmodern stealings, and leaves you...well, with not a lot really. With a good band, inventive production and better songs, his first 3 albums were all excellent, but since he's neither Elton John or the Scissor Sisters live, a little more grace would be nice. The audience seemed to like it though by this stage it was mostly born again Christian music students with their soporific boyfriends, swaying to the slow bits. Put me down as ex-fan, I'm afraid. It was hard to get away from the main stage (and the beer queue) so I missed the Longcut, but earlier caught the KBC who were very good in a Franz Ferdinand/Kasabian/something of their own sort of way, and Stubbsy aka Stubbs the Band who had the best voice of the day, outside of Guy Garvey. The Cohesion event goes to creating a Manchester Peace Park in Kosovo, a reminder, in the week of the Labour Party Conference, that military intervention can be justified, and that the effects of war - civil or otherwise - don't go away when the journalists move on.

End of Days

There was a fascinating, and frankly bizarre programme fronted by Tony Robinson a few days ago about "Endtimers" those (mostly) Americans who believe we are in the "end of days" and actually want to make catastrophe a self-fulfilling prophecy. I did get the feeling that the appropriate response was to just laugh at these idiots, rather than stoke them up into a 2 hour documentary; but apparently they have some clout in the White House - which is increasingly appearing as prone to madness as the early days of Apple records. You have to be fascinated though - "Revelations" has always seemed one of the more exciting parts of the Bible, and the fact that it's still part of that scripture does make you take the whole thing a little less seriously - though of course Noah and Job show that the Bible's no stranger to catastrophe. The positing of the toothless United Nations as "the Great Satan" always seems a bit weird, a bit too Omen II - surely the White House itself would be a better candidate, or the House of Saud? The worry, of course, is that these extreme views can become terribly destructive in the wrong hands - a church in Uganda that had its own apocalypse was just the most horrific example. But the "end of days" is a fascinating subject for a writer. There seems to be a return to an interest in apocalyptic visions - in David Mitchell and Michael Cunningham recently for instance - that have perhaps been green-lighted by 9/11 and the Iraq war: and language is becoming one of the battlegrounds, as the Pope's travails this week have shown. As Katy Evans-Bush's recent blog entry makes clear nuance is being lost even as we try and explain and understand these events.

Politics

With the Labour Party Conference coming to Manchester shortly I think even a literary blog can turn a little political. Harriet Harman was interviewed on Andrew Marr's BBC show this morning, and she talked about how foreign policy was more important now to the public after having previously seen as the preserve of (I paraphrase) Queens, ambassadors and foreign secretaries. Andrew Marr, as crap as ever, failed to take her up on this. As anyone with any knowledge of anything but the most recent political history would know, the majority of crises in British government - Suez, the Falklands, Westland, the Irish Question, India - have been foreign, and Iraq is just the latest of these. Her naive popular-culture view on things, that if something's not happened in the last 6 months it doesn't count, deserved a little more robust questioning from Marr, don't you think? Needless to say, those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Johnny B. Bad

I've been listening to Chuck Berry (he's 80 on October 18th, no great age really, he's our world) and as always when you listen to him, it kind of puts everything else into perspective. Without Chuck what would there be? No Beatles, no Stones, no Beach Boys. He's the Shakespeare of Rock and Roll - and knew it ("Roll Over Beethoven" anyone?). "Albums" were a world away, it was all about moments, and he had plenty of them. A musician friend said he was a crap guitarist, which just goes to show how overrated that talent is. He wasn't that great a singer either. You can easily prefer the cover versions. But was there ever a better writer of the American dream, the American road? Forget Kerouac, forget Ginsberg. Chuck's your man.

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.

Book Off

I was intrigued to read about "Book-off" coming to London - apparently the Japanese have taken to this chain of secondhand book superstores - where all the books are pre-"cleaned" to appeal to the hygiene-conscious Japanese. I'm a secondhand book addict, and yet it was only about 1997 that I started collecting - before then, perhaps because I had a good salary, and a legacy of a home life that said "new" was best, I hardly ever bought second-hand. It's hard to know whether its a good thing or not buying secondhand books, since obviously the author gets nothing for your troubles - but I'd argue, somewhat persuasively, that the majority of secondhand books I buy just aren't available elsewhere. Every town has a Waterstones, and you'd be hardpressed to find any surprises on their shelves - yet every secondhand bookshop, or charity shop can furnish unexpected gems. There's a couple of favourites here in south Manchester, but I can't resist hunting out secondhand shops wherever I am in the country; and though I'm pretty demanding about the condition, I might miss a bit of mustiness.

The Lowest Key Booker ever?

Hot(ish) off the press...

Desai, Kiran The Inheritance of Loss - Hamish Hamilton
Grenville, Kate The Secret River - Canongate
Hyland, M.J. Carry Me Down - Canongate
Matar, Hisham In the Country of Men - Viking
St Aubyn, Edward Mother’s Milk - Picador
Waters, Sarah The Night Watch - Virago

Is Canongate the new literary tiger? Scotland's finest - having given us "Life of Pi" - has two on the list. M.J. Hyland, I wasn't aware of at all, and yet she lives in Manchester apparently - though this might be a mistake in the press release, elsewhere she's said to live in Rome - she's Australian anyway, or Irish, amazing how everyone claims you as their own when you become successful - obviously the Lennox Lewis of literature. Kiran Desai is "Martin" to her mother Anita's "Kingsley," though possibly doesn't now need to continue on her creative writing course! and one is immediately worried when you realise 3 of the writers are younger than me. Ah, but what about the books? They sound, hmmm, unengaging - 2 historical novels, and 3 set outside of the UK, which is very Booker. I read a little of "The Night Watch" when it was in the Granta young novelist edition and didn't like it very much, but I couldn't get a handle on "Fingersmith" either - I think Waters is just not to my taste. Maybe its the relative youth of the list, but the overwhelming subject seems to be (unhappy) families. A quiet Booker then? Possibly no bad thing - this pantomime every year gets a little disproportionate (though I'm rather fond of that same pantomime). And if it looks a little more Orange than Booker, then perhaps having 4 out of 6 female writers might be the reason. Us poor men, perhaps we need our own prize... someone tell Carling Black Label.

Appropriate Response

I thought Simon Armitage's visual poem for Five was a superbly appropriate response to the horror of 9/11 on its 5th anniversary. You can read it here. Read from "And here is a rock from Brighton beach" on page 16 to the end, even if you don't read the whole thing, but the whole thing has a beautiful humanity to it.

Sunday Service

The Sunday Times has gone up to £2, but you got a Jimi Hendrix CD with it; yesterday and today's Telegraph's gave you CDs of the Royal Philharmonic; the Independent is papering my wall with lovely RSPB bird charts (today: wetland birds); and the quirky French animation Belleville Rendezvous was free in the Times yesterday. I passed on the Daily Mail's "Life on Earth". Newspapers are clearly an effective distribution medium; but it's getting ridiculous! I've got about 30 unwatched 3 DVDs and its an increasingly highbrow collection. The Guardian sticks to what it knows best; additional supplements and serialisations. I quite like the Observer's weekly magazines, when its Food, Sport and Music, but give the Womens magazine a miss, and look what the other papers have to offer; and the daily Guardian comes up with more posters (mushrooms anyone?) and little guides, like Best Walks, and the new Premiership season. With so much choice, an offer that doesn't appeal is as likely to make me not read the paper. I was utterly put off reading the Guardian because of it's big Bill Bryson feature, maybe I'm just not interested in a childhood in Des Moines; and if I was I could wait for the book, or even watch tonight's South Bank Show. The Booker Prize shortlist will be announced on Thursday 14th September, but before then it's wall-to-wall 9/11 retrospectives, and the troubling figure, from the Independent, that it's best estimate of deaths caused by the response to 9/11 is 62, 006. And on Wednesday Manchester United play Celtic in the first group match of the Champions League. Incredibly its their first ever competitive game. Literature gets a rare football connection with David Peace's new novel, The Damned United, which dramatises Brian Clough's 44 day reign at Leeds United. It's likely that my next project will be a novel about football - though that's merely the context to bring the characters together - so, I'm interested in seeing an actual football novel; there's not been that many. Andrew Motion's memoir gets a pasting in whichever of the many papers I've discarded this weekend that reviewed it, it seems he's tried to write a "Cider With Rosie." His poetry's always been nostalgic, and I wonder what's served by a fictional version? I read biographies of writers - including the one's Motion has written - and skip the childhood crap to get to when they started writing, so not sure what's served by these kind of things. But there's a market, even if it's not me. Craig Raine's daughter is the latest "chip off the old block" to have a literary life, having a play she's written reviewed in another of them, so you end up with this bizarre world where the offspring of writers are desperate to follow in their parents' literary footsteps, and the writers themselves are desperate to write about their non-literary upbringings. Sunday service, of course, everything will return to normal tomorrow.

Old, new stories

I've added a couple more old stories to my download page. Martin Amis Lives Upstairs is a story about literary paranoia, which was published in Main Street Journal; What's Happened to Larry? asks how long would it take for someone to notice you were missing, and was my first published story, in PROP magazine; whilst Bat-She-Bop is a young woman coming to terms with her sexuality, and was one of my earliest stories.

Pulp Barton

Last night, unexpectedly ended up at "Mary Barton" at the Royal Exchange. I have to say I've never read Mrs. Gaskell, apart from her life of Charlotte Bronte, and this was her first novel. Of course, part of the joy of this particular literary adaption was that the novel is squarely set in Manchester. The performance was fine, though it's almost impossible to judge these literary adaptions which strip a novel of its nuance, to find the plot, and sails close to melodrama as a result - though perhaps we should just admit it, we like seeing melodrama, and the classier the better. Got back to find "Pulp Fiction" on one of the cable channels. Here's a piece of writing where every line is a gem. It was good when it came out, but it's aged well. Will we look back on the Tarantino of "Reservoir Dogs", "Pulp Fiction", "Jackie Brown" and the 2 "Kill Bills" and realise he was one of the best? I think so - he realises, as David Foster Wallace has written in regard to television - that our writers and film makers are influenced, not by the real world, or even classical art, but by the ephemeral: the Brady bunch rather than the Odyssey; Hong Kong Phooey rather than Leonardo Da Vinci. Yet, having said that, I wonder what the next generation will feel is worthy of homage? It sometimes seems that culture is eating itself, niches within niche. Real life, like the Victorian novelists realised, remains a rich seam - and writers perhaps need to lift their heads a little more from their playstations, DVDs and yes, webpages. Whilst I'm here, I'd like to point you in the direction of This Space's musings on "The Despair of Popular Authors" (surely a Divine Comedy song in waiting?) part one and part two. Where Stephen Mitchelmore really hits on the head, is that writers like Robert Harris are always vague about who it is they're moaning about. Perhaps there's always a chance they'll be sharing a literary festival with Ali Smith or Salman Rushdie or John Banville, or whoever these "shadowy" literary writers are, taking up all those precious review space. Alternatively, what we have here is the oldest trick in the book. Robert Harris has been everywhere this week with his novel about ancient Rome; clearly not even the most fawning of interviewers actually wants to talk about his "new Labour in togas" (duh) novel - so he gives them a bit of spin.

The Unlistenables

I'm a bit of a connoiseur of "difficult" music. We had a record player in the sixth form common room, and whoever bought records in, got to play them on it. There was a challenge to play something so annoying that everyone would leave. Most of the sixth form were incredibly dull and would occasionally treat us to a Phil Collins or Meat Loaf album, which was reason enough, I think to impose on them something a little more out there. Psychic TV's "The Full Pack" - ten minutes of wolves howling was my masterpiece - though I think the most unlistenable thing we ever heard there was the first Alien Sex Fiend album; approach with care. Reading in this month's Mojo about "An Electric Storm" by White Noise from 1969, I had to get it, particularly with the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's Delia Derbyshire involved. I must admit I was half expecting some unlistenable hippy shit, but it's actually great - first track sounds like Stereolab! So, not that unlistenable after all.

Great Poets

The Mercury prize has surprised by not being quixotic and giving the prize to the Arctic Monkeys, which is fine, but a little pointless. I'm listening to one of the great poets, Joni Mitchell, whose 1998 album "Tame the Tiger" has just popped through the door - it seems to take its bearings from the wonderful "In France they kiss on main street" from "Hissing of Summer Lawns" in 1975, which is just fine by me. I totally missed this album when it came out, but along with its superb predecessor "Turbulent Indigo" it shows that her 1990s were remarkably good.

Five Years On

I am pleased that it's Simon Armitage that has written a poem about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001. He's unlikely to be portentious, or puffing his own agenda. I saw part of one of the many documentaries on the anniversary last night, and it still has the power to inflict troubling dreams on one. I felt at the time, as did one person on that footage, that this was the start of "a war", that anything could now happen. That "anything" has happened, I guess, but though there has been a range of terrorist attacks since, most notably in London, it has been anything but "orchestrated" - which was what was most chilling about 9/11. Being in shock at the first plane, and then seeing the second... this was clearly not random chance. Where I was working at the time, the initial response of a couple of my colleagues was "serves them right, American had it coming to them," singularly lacking compassion, because of their own anti-Americanism. I was reminded of this last night, watching the television - that nobody had that coming to them, and who, after all, was the "them?" The courage of the New York firefighters on that day, as well, seems of an entirely different order than the "courage" of a suicide bomber. As a writer, 9/11 and the events surrounding it, aren't my subject, and as we see the "anything" turning into the polarising wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I'm becoming more reticent about having an opinion on any of this. There's no simple opinion. I can make a judgement - say, that the Israeli bombing of Lebanon was wrong - but that's all it is. I'm still, vaguely, troublingly, more on the side of the American and British governments, than I am on the side of Muhammad Atta and others. I'm not sure I'm yet ready to have Martin Amis get into a terrorist's head. His recent work would imply he was the last person I'd want to be taking on that job; yet, the key to Amis's best subject was always a very personalised view of wider catastrophe. I've felt that since the passing of the Cold War, and particularly of an underlying worry about Nuclear catastrophe, (he seemed to need this "cloud" above his characters' perfect heads, to enable his satire to work), he's been fumbling for a subject strong enough for his talents. The war on terror, I guess, could well be it. He joins quite a crew -: Jonathan Safran Foer, Ian McEwan, Helen Fielding, Michael Cunningham, Iain Banks, John Updike, Jay McInerney and Monica Ali, have all written books touched, if only mildly, by this "new world." There will no doubt be a Terror Lit. 101 on American Literature courses in the near future. This week there will be no escaping the memories of 9/11, and remembrance seems the appropriate response. The geopolitics can wait for another time.

O! Walt...Michael's here

I thought Michael Cunningham's "The Hours" was one of the better novels of recent years. I read it after seeing the film, actually, and enjoyed both. The book was far more explicit in the comparison's between the stories, than the film. His new book "Specimen Days" takes two of the methods he uses in "The Hours," - the portmanteau novel, and a literary precursor, here it's Walt Whitman - to write a very different book. Like David Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas" this is a series of (long) short stories loosely connected. Here, the connections are in two ways - 3 characters, a boy, a young man, a young woman - reappear in 3 different New Yorks, the 19th century, the present, and somewhere in the future; and in each story, Walt Whitman's poetry plays an important part. It's a complex novel, and the edition I've got, has an interview with Cunningham, which helps explain what many may see as a quite a "rash" experiment. I'd agree with that - this is a novelist overreaching; and I guess a readers' view of the whole novel will depend a little on whether you agree with the underlying thesis. However, the three stories in themselves have much to recommend them, particularly the 19th century opener, "In the Machine," which is a sustained, "historical" story of some power. The "detective" novella that follows, and the "science fiction" of the last part are perhaps less successful, mainly I think, because of having to carry the weight of expectation of this being a novel. Whereas "Cloud Atlas" was as flippant as Douglas Adams in its "connections", this is a little on the portentous side. However, it's fascinating seeing New York across 3 centuries, and, like in "The Hours", Cunningham writes brilliantly about women. Even the female alien of the final story is a wonderful character study. Saying any more would take away from some of the novel's inventiveness, and I'd recommend the book - albeit cautiously. It's interesting that a number of literary writers are flirting with science fiction at the moment, however, with both Cunningham and Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go" they're almost treating science fiction as a "costume drama" - so that even though they're set in the future, they're actually using the conventions of classic sci-fi; for Ishiguro's John Wyndham-isms, Cunningham seems to have read Heinlein.

Narrative Theories

It was a bank holiday yesterday, and suffering a little from a late rainy night in Stockport (it's glamorous I know), watching Puressence, I ended up watching 3 films. All of them in very different ways were masterclasses in narrative. First up, on Five, was The Spirit of St. Louis, Billy Wilder's James Stewart helmed biopic of Charles Lingbergh. Told using a variety of flashback devices (Citizen Kane's influence perhaps?) the main part of the movie was the flight itself - one man in a tiny plane for 33 hours. It's a tribute to Wilder and Stewart that they made this so gripping. It could easily be recreated as a one man show at next year's Edinburgh. There's the real drama, even knowing he makes it, of how he can stay awake, keep the plane in the air, and then there's Stewart's voiceover, reliving his flying career, and for part of the journey, talking to a fly. A consummate piece of popular film making; that's almost existential in its methods. The New York-Paris trip was one of exploration and endurance. Film is often good at the first, less so at the second. The recent Touching the Void seemed a remarkable example of the latter, but I was impressed to see a much earlier film doing it so well. Having been drawn to Lindbergh after reading about his fictional version in Roth's Plot Against America, these real life stories deserve a telling as good as this one. Later, I watched Ridley Scott's Alien. I've recently got the boxed set and want to watch them all. In this first film - the Director's Cut - I'd forgotten much of the detail. I think its a near perfect piece of storytelling; so much that is important is hidden only to be revealed later - the role of Ash, the company's plant on the ship in particular. The details - calling the ship Nostromo, the ship's cat Jones - are signifiers of many a sea-faring journey. Obviously there's not the same suspense of seeing it for the first time, but instead I got a chance to marvel at the pacing, tension and story development. Only a couple of things seemed wrong - the first time the Alien appears on the ship it's already grown to full size - and I can't understand why Ripley tries to forestall the ship's destruction when she's actually seen the alien. There's none of the bond between Ripley and the alien that is so fascinating in the later films, but in a sense that doesn't matter, all of the possibilities are there - Ripley immediately understanding that this is something so bad that it has to be destroyed. The evening's 3rd film was Spike Lee's 25th Hour, a more recent movie, with Ed Norton as a busted drug dealer with a day of freedom before a 7 year sentence starts. There's a share of flashbacks, but intriguely its a day where nothing actually happens - in that Norton's character is resigned to his fate, and unable to do a thing about it. He distrusts his girlfriend, protects his father, and fights with his friends. As always with Lee, whose films are almost always better their profile would imply, there's an ensemble cast, talking to each other, and it's in this dialogue that most of the character building takes place. Three films then, very different, and all, I think, great narratives, even from the slimmest of controlled premises. Actually that's the one thing they've got in common, all are in "real time" (hence the flashbacks in two of them), and are in situations to have to be resolved by the end of the film. If you want to write a story that would make good cinema then this is one way of doing it, but more than that, most of us do get our narratives from film as well as books. I know quite a few writers who like the movies, but primarily as entertainment - I've always seen them as a good place to pick up tips on writing stories.

Betjeman's Centenary

It is unusual for the BBC to notice poetry, never mind make a big event out of it; but I guess Betjeman was one of their own. I just saw Laurence Llewellyn Bowen described as a "Betjeman enthusiast", which probably says more than anything I could. It would be churlish to say much about a poet whose appeal has always baffled me, and at least, with his long broadcasting career, its not just "talking heads" but Betjeman himself who gets to speak, which is as it should be. And, to be fair, Betjeman seems to be the patron poet of Englishness, so that had he not existed we'd have had to make him up. I can't remember if I mentioned before that I'd stopped editing Lamport Court New Writing, leaving it in the capable hands of Neil Campbell. I'm pleased to announce that issue 7 is out this week, and will be on sale at the Cornerhouse and the independent book market in St. Anne's square next Saturday.

All in a Day's Work

Having failed dismally to write anything of my novella yesterday, I was surprised that, sitting down to it this morning, I was able to complete the first draft. I did that most pleasing of things, "got to the end." The story is told. The plot and character decisions are all made. What remains is the rewriting, improving the grammar, getting rid of inconsistencies, explaining what needs explaining, and removing that which is over explanatory. I've written enough to know that this piece doesn't need any kind of major surgery. All the plot decisions, I'm happy with - in any novel there's endless other turnings you can take, and yet when the idea is fundamentally sound, then it becomes clear where the internal logic takes you. I'm not sure why I'm sharing all this! This blog was originally meant to be about "the creative process" but became, inevitably, more about the literary "world", in one way or another. Yet, a blog's a diary, a writers' diary, and it's these "first drafts of (personal) history" that are worth capturing. So, I've spent 4 days writing the "difficult" 3rd section of the novella; which is around 10,000 words, so though quantity isn't the point, it's a pleasing return on my time spent - a quarter of them were written, apparently with ease, this morning. It was Cyril Connolly who said that writers drink because they have to have something to do in the afternoons. I've written at all times of the day; but getting something done before noon is particularly pleasing. I have to find something to do in the afternoon that's all! I guess when I start a "piece" I'm unusual in that I don't have a plot to work from or synopsis; what I have is an "essence", an idea of what I'm trying to get across. Over time, that can change, and I guess, this novella which began as a man facing a midlife crisis, and it being about his inability to change his life, became change through the destructive; though he's the last person to realise that's what he's doing. It's both a common theme (surely he's Hamlet?) and an unusual one for me; much of my fiction is circular, it is about the consequence of actions, and is often redemptive - this piece, though not all depressing, is anything but redemptive. It's the stranger walking off into the distance having survived whatever disaster's happened. One inspiration for it was Peckinpah's "Straw Dogs" - too much criticism of the movie is concentrated on the rape scene - what interests me about the film, is the unusual way with narrative - it is Dustin Hoffman's character who is, in many ways, defending a dead end, not for any principle, but just because that's what a man has to do. You want him to walk away from his pyrrhic stand - it's King Harold at Stamford Bridge, not realising the real battle is a few hundred miles south, at Hastings, it's Othello killing Desdemona only to satisfy a dignity that has lost all meaning.In a small way, that's what I'm trying to replicate in this novella; how a contemporary man with everything apparently perfect in life, has to make his own pyrrhic stand. I chose a "barbecue" as his breaking point, partly because of the cliche of men fighting to master a barbecue, but also because it seemed the only thing "real" for a life dominated by a bureaucratic/electronic world.

Salty Hill

A glowing review of Tobias Hill's new collection in the Guardian yesterday, his first for a number of years, and interestingly, though he is published by Faber for his fiction, his poetry, once with the defunct OUP, is now published by Salt, possibly yet more proof of that press's increased standing and profile. I met him some years ago, at a fiction reading in Manchester, and even then he was saying how he'd like to return to poetry at some point - his fiction career was just taking off - and he gave the example of Margaret Atwood, whose success in novels, he reckoned, had been a loss to Canada's poetry scene.

Round-up

Fans of Gwendoline Riley can see a write-up of her next novel, Joshua Spassky, which sounds like a Wim Wenders movie in the making, due next May. Not for the first time, one gasps at the lead time for novels these days. It's not the writing or the printing, its the marketing schedule that dominates, so you can get a ghostwritten Frank Lampard biography weeks after the World Cup, with a last chapter hastily added, but a new novel, by a promising young author? They only ever release them in the spring. There's still time to apply for the New Writing Partnership's writing bursary. I was interested to see the 9 shortlisted writers for its mentoring scheme, at least partly because, rarely, it gives you a chance to read their work. I liked Linda Black's prose poem "My mother is trapped in a jar of ginger." I came across a good list of poetry magazines at the Scottish Poetry Library, whilst looking out the address of the Shop, for a friend who lives in Ireland, where its based, as is impressively comprehensive "blog"/lit zine Dogmatika. Still waiting for Manchester Literature festival's website to go live, but see there's a blog for one small strand of it The Burgess Project. Burgess never wrote that much about Manchester in his fiction, so much of it that was international, but his autobiography is a virtual A-Z of the pre-war city. I'm umming and ahhing about whether I can send anything to Succour magazine for its next issue, temptingly "The Obscene". Not for the first time, a theme has given me a writer's block. Unfortunately like too many magazines, its word limit - 2500 words - is too low for the best of my work. Good to read one of Togara Muzanenhemo's poems, at Todd Swift's blog, from his new Carcanet collection. We published Togara's poems in Lamport Court, and a long poetic story appeared in the last issue. Meant to mention a couple of things: Manchester independent book market on 1st September, and the polka-dot attired new anthology of women's writing from Crocus called "Bitch Lit." I finished reading my second long-ish novel in a week (after "Brick Lane") with Sara Paretsky's "Guardian Angel", she's the one crime writer I really like. As she's gone on, you get more of V.I. Warshawski's life - and this is her strength. When people question why "genre" novels don't get more literary kudos, I guess, even with a writer this good, it's because they are formulaic. Warshawski - a female Chicago Private Investigator - starts investigating a couple of minor issues for friends or neighbours, in this case an old lady going into hospital, and a friend of a neighbour disappearing, and from this stumbles on something that comes close to getting her killed - leading, inevitably, to a web of corruption that goes to the very top of Chicago's white collar establishment. It's great stuff, but it is formulaic - and though I think this was one of the best in terms of the writing, and the "human" stuff, the plot was a little slapdash. I guess making white collar crime (Enron etc) interesting is probably the toughest job for a contemporary crime writer.

End Game

I'm coming to the end of the novella I began writing a year or more ago. I think I've one last section to write, before I go onto the rewrites. Not that rewriting should take that much, since I've been doing that as I've gone along. For once I had a story with quite a rigid structure and therefore the main issues I had were about tone and voice. There were also a couple of issues I had to decide which relate, I guess, to reader's expectations. I've often written in the "localised third person" almost following the main character round like an invisible camera crew. It can work well, but it can also restrict, if you're not careful. The most famous example is probably "Crime and Punishment." The problem I face is that even though it's 3rd person, the concentration on one character's perspective and thoughts mean that it can become quite insular - and you'd have to be a far better writer than I am, to make a pure train of thoughts interesting. I write to tell a story, as much as any higher aims, and making sure that story has enough concrete detail, and that the cast of characters is controlled, has been the difficult thing in writing this novella. Sensibly, I think, I've brought back some of those characters introduced earlier in the story, to play a pivotal part in the final scene. It's a contrivance in some ways - but necessary. In something of this length - I figure it will end up as around 25,000 words - there's little room for anything other than brief character sketches except for the main character, and his (offstage) wife. She's even more difficult, in some ways, because it's her absence during the week that the story takes place, which creates the story, and I've thought long and hard whether she should remain an offstage presence. But this is fiction, not drama (although I've imagined it in my head as a 3-act piece), and so I think she has to appear. She's already there - in voice on the telephone, and so is an existing character in the novel, albeit disembodied; she's not then a Godot, or an offstage comic sitcom spouse. The novella is funny in parts, but it also has a fair share of action. This morning, I found myself writing what I hope is a realistic fight scene, with 2 male duos up against each other. It struck me, writing this scene, how it's not just about the main character's actions, but that the whole story is about masculinity; and, more than that, how men define themselves in terms of their self worth. At various stages in the story, the main character is defined by his workplace, by his possessions, by his "perfect" marriage, by his attractiveness to other women, by him being able to take his drink, by him having a one-night stand, by him being in control of situations, and finally, I guess, by him being able to use his fists. None of these, in the end, will be enough, and it's almost like in the week when his wife's away, the character goes through a series of "tests" to see what kind of man he really is. The ending, which I've yet to write, will hopefully answer that. Given this, it will be interesting to see, when it's complete, what both male and female readers think of it. I don't think of myself as a particular macho writer, yet I choose these subjects.

Born Yesterday

I enjoyed reading Helen Rumbelow's piece in the Times quoting from Larkin's "Born Yesterday," a poem written for the birth of Kingsley Amis's daughter Sally. Is it harder for girls to be anything other than "ordinary"? I'm sitting here listening to Joni Mitchell's wonderful live album "Miles of Aisles" and Mitchell is one - along with Patti Smith - who convinces in the idea of female genius; and genius in a very particular way: that of the genius individual, whose single-minded view of the world is what stands out, time and time again. Larkin wishes that Sally "may be ordinary; have, like other women an average of talents...in fact, may you be dull." (it's in "The Less Deceived"). As always with Larkin, I think you have to be careful not to take him entirely at face value. I think, rather than being a slight on women, this is Larkin envying, not the fact of being "ordinary", but that it is (or was) allowable. He spent much of his life being asked to provide more than he felt he could ever provide, and probably loved the thought of low expectation. But as Rumbelow says, he wouldn't have wrote that poem about Kingsley's son Martin, no way. Of course, as every year's exam results prove, expectations keep getting higher. It would be facile to wonder why the early 70s might give us Patti Smith, Joni Mitchell, Anne Waldman, Adrienne Rich and Margaret Atwood, and wonder where their equivalent's might be today. Facile, because you may as well ask where's the new David Bowie? (instead, we get Russell Brand and Pete Doherty).

Class Reaction

Writer Elizabeth Baines, in her response to my "Brick Lane" review below, wonders about my reference to Zadie Smith's "middle class conventions." It's long been my contention that class remains at the heart of British fiction, is responsible for most of its failings and some of its successes; and that writers simply cannot ignore it, or by their choices of settings and characters are reinforcing it. This is not just as simplistic as a London-based media writing of and for itself; you see it in unapologetically working class prose from David Peace or Irvine Welsh. What I'm still waiting for, and if anyone can supply a name I'd be surprised, but will investigate, is a British writer who can observe and comment on class in this country in a dispassionate way. You get a societal novel like Alan Hollinghurst's "The Line of Beauty" and its fascination is almost entirely with the rich. An arriviste outsider might be the commentator on their lives, but he is also participant, and, in Hollinghurst at least, intoxicated by that life. In Ian McEwan's "Enduring Love" the terrifying balloon accident at its start brings together people from different walks of life, yet McEwan can't these days handle characters unless they are Cabinet Ministers (at the top, in "Amsterdam") or criminals (his last 3 contemporary novels.) This is a rarified cast. Zadie Smith was praised, rightly, for "White Teeth", but, wrongly in my opinion, for it being primarily about London's melting pot; the awfully middle class white family, though butt of many of her jokes, were also the place that you felt she was writing from. As I've written about "On Beauty," she has little interest in the working class street poet, and for more in the internal politics of a patrician university. Whereas Fitzgerald wrote that the "rich are different", Hemingway's riposte, "yes, they've got more money" is perhaps the approach I'd like from a British writer. And, of course, the middle England, of car boot sales, and package holidays, and working in middle management - a world I think William Hague was far more emblematic of than Blair, Cameron or Brown - is unwritten. American writers as varied as Bellow, Updike, Wolfe and Roth have managed to write about the real country that they see before them - the British - mostly the English - still hanker for Iris Murdoch's country house intrigue; or a Sunday supplement lifestyle. I think we have to give up on the A-List writers like Smith and McEwan being able to write with any kind of classlessness these days; anymore than Oasis were able to write songs about aspiration once they'd made the jetset. The downside of all this for the reader is that whilst I might go to McEwan for an accurate portrayal of a top surgeon's life and practice (as in "Saturday"), I won't go there for any real insight into life in this country here and now. Yesterday, I went to Hay-on-Wye for the first time. I can't find the link, but I think it was George Saunders who did an irreverent diary for the Guardian recently about his recent visit there. During the festival at least, a particular London-based literati class visits en masse, which he amusingly detailed; but it was more a mixed bag on Sunday; walkers there for the afternoon, foreign tourists, even book loving fathers with their literate daughters ("Would you like it, dear?" he said, picking up a boxset of Tennyson for £100, "Not really, I only like one poem", she replied). I'll go again, though not particularly for the books. Betwixt and between the vast warehouses of overstocks, and old novels; and the antiquarian specialists; I found a few gems, but not the book nirvana I'd hoped for. It's a little like Charing Cross Road, for that; I'll find more of my kind of books elsewhere, and at keener prices. Though looking through so many books, one does occasionally wonder "Why?" The Poetry Bookshop was worth many hours, (and probably many more pounds) of my money, though they didn't have the two books I was looking for. I saw books I'd never seen before which is part of the pleasure. I came back laden with Cummings, Pirandello, Aylett, Creeley, Marvell and Ashbery; a good midfield in anyone's book.

Not Pete Doherty

Since the first libertine was not, as younger viewers might think, Pete Doherty, I think we can welcome a new magazine devoted to liberating language - and, it's probably long overdue a magazine that was not afraid to mix songwriting with poetry. Anyway, The Libertine will be with us shortly. and with a Myspace showing of 906 friends already, its good to see that small presses are finding Myspace as much fun as bands. Issue 1's submission date is gone, and although first issue contents "Carol Ann Duffy waxes lyrical...Talking Lennon/McCartney, Mozart and Morrisey!" seems a little mainstream for my tastes, I look forward to reading it. I've a book here, (honestly, I didn't have to dig very far!) called "Sweet Nothings" - "an anthology of rock and roll in American poetry" and though part of me thinks this is a BAD THING, I also quite like bad things. For instance, its clear that any representative anthology of Manchester poetry should include Mark E. Smith, John Cooper Clarke and Morrissey; and if it widened to the North West then I'm sure you should also include Paul Simon's wistful "Homeward Bound" written at Widnes Station. Yet, its not always a good idea to mix poetry and music. Poets seem to age prematurely even when they're not actually that ancient. On the one hand you get a young-ish Paul Muldoon waxing lyrical about a number of his favourite albums (all, if I remember correctly, safe middle-of-the-road seventies rock and, er... "Parallel Lines") that will probably kill any mystique he ever had; on the other hand you get Clark Coolidge writing a little pamphlet called Neil Young. I guess I'd be surprised if any poet under 50 - say, Simon Armitage for instance - was as oblivious of pop music as a previous generation; yet just as it seems very few poets have much interest in novels, (except their own), they rarely have much interest in "pop music" either. Possibly a good thing, since an interest in Massive Attack or Prodigy would date your poem as much as a bubble perm or bell bottoms, but a shame as well, since "popular song" has found its way into poets as diverse as Eliot and Ashbery. Mention the ubiquitous Beatles or Dylan and you're probably okay, just a little dull.

Brick Lane

I've finally got round to reading "Brick Lane" by Monica Ali. I think it was the woman who picks Richard and Judy's book club saying it was her one "mistake" (mainly, I think because Ali wasn't particularly starry-eyed at such an accolade), that finally made me get round to it. I'd read the chapter in Granta's young novelists round up, and been impressed by Ali's surety of touch - no naive debutant here, but a fully formed writer - and having written about the recent upset concerning the book, and particular Germaine Greer's comments, I've at last found the time. I think it's a remarkably sustained work, a very well-written debut novel, which sets itself a formidable task - to write about a hidden part of society, but do it through humanely believable characters. Such a task, of course, was what the great Victorian novels excelled in. The Bangladeshi community of 21st Century Tower Hamlets is peeled open, like Eliot peeled open radical Jewish London in "Daniel Deronda". There are none of the middle class conventions that jump out from even a writer like Zadie Smith. The characters in "Brick Lane", from seamstress to doctor, are unable, unwilling, or unlikely to be able to step into the world around them. Brick Lane, just a step away from London's financial heartbeat, may as well be as isolated as the Brazilian slums of "City of God." What Ali does well, and I'd hope she continues to do, is to build detail-on-detail, quietly, unflashily, to build up a portrait that goes beyond what might initially appear stereotypes. In the arranged marriage of Nazneen and Chanu she takes a stock situation and adds to it, little by little until it's a feast of subtle characterisation. Chanu is a brilliant creation - a thwarted intellectual, a useless, but kind husband and father - whilst Nazneen - born in Bangladesh in 1967, married off at 16, is a child slowly having to become a woman. The isolation of this community is hardly believable, but women kept behind closed doors, and not being allowed or encouraged to work or speak, it becomes believable. Nazneen's growing confidence is incredibly slow coming - and if there's a major fault with the books, its in foregrounding so much post-1998, when clearly the brutal realities of the Thatcher years could so easily have destroyed such fragile characters. Ali reminds me a little of Doris Lessing, in having both a real concern for the minutiae of everyday (often female) life, and an intellectual's raised eyebrow at the wider picture. I can't think of many contemporary writers who would have the ability and confidence to mix the two, yet such a "societal" novel should be central to our fiction. She should be applauded in that sense, for not grounding the novel in the past, or - despite its lingering essense - in the foreign exoticism of the subcontinent. In "The Good Terrorist" Lessing piles up the details of a radical commune, and the inherent contradictions in such politics, and Ali, with a sharp eye for the satirical, without ever becoming the Kumars, likewise wheedles these out. The abysmal Mrs. Iqbal, a rapacious moneylender, could come out of a Dickens slum - and its a reminder of what the poor have to do to "get by." It's a long book, and although the forward tension is handled expertly, it sometimes fails to give justice to the major actions within the characters lives. If the domestic is in close focus, the bigger tragedies seem to lack emotional resonance, Nazneen's "trusting to fate" a little too easy an excuse. Even the awakening that occurs when the young radical Karim enters her life, is handled in soft focus. I had horrors of it turning into a Mills and Boon at this stage, but Ali never forgets where her characters are - what their limitations are. It's perhaps no coincidence that its female writers - like Lessing, like Eliot - and even E. Annie Proulx in "The Shipping News" - who come to mind when it comes to this portrayal of lives that are not easily turned around.

A Degree of Self Awareness

I was just returning from town, and couldn't help but notice the conversation behind me. A student was talking about his courses. "I'm doing Orton, Beckett and Pinter this year." His companion said something, that I didn't hear. Then: "Last year, I did the Victorian novel, but it really messed up all my grades. I got to the exam and just couldn't answer anything. I'd not read any of the books. I'd seen the film, or read a little bit - I tried, but I just couldn't read them. But it meant I failed that unit and it brought all my grades down. But this will be all right, because they're plays, and short." His tone of voice throughout was great, as if it was the fault of the Victorian literature course that he'd failed - that somehow he should have been able to pass it without actually reading the books. I was weirdly pleased. After all, you clearly still have to read the books to succeed at an English Literature degree. I doubt he'll find the playwrights any easier, even if he gets to the end. I'm not going to tut-tut his stupidity as a sign of this generation, since I remember a similar thing when I was studying for my English degree in 1988. I came out of an exam - usually something like American literature or Women Writers - and students were complaining how hard it was. "You see, I hadn't read any of the books," they said. I missed my share of lectures and seminars without any discernibly negative effect on my degree, but that's probably because I did read the books.

Booker Long List

Hot off the press, this year's Booker Longlist...

Carey, Peter Theft: A Love Story (Faber & Faber)
Desai, Kiran The Inheritance of Loss (Hamish Hamilton)
Edric, Robert Gathering the Water (Doubleday)
Gordimer, Nadine Get a Life (Bloomsbury)
Grenville, Kate The Secret River (Canongate)
Hyland, M.J. Carry Me Down (Canongate)
Jacobson, Howard Kalooki Nights (Jonathan Cape)
Lasdun, James Seven Lies (Jonathan Cape)
Lawson, Mary The Other Side of the Bridge (Chatto & Windus)
McGregor, Jon So Many Ways to Begin (Bloomsbury)
Matar, Hisham In the Country of Men (Viking)
Messud, Claire The Emperor’s Children (Picador)
Mitchell, David Black Swan Green (Sceptre)
Murr, Naeem The Perfect Man (William Heineman)
O’Hagan, Andrew Be Near Me (Faber & Faber)
Robertson, James The Testament of Gideon Mack (Hamish Hamilton)
St Aubyn, Edward Mother’s Milk (Picador)
Unsworth, Barry The Ruby in her Navel (Hamish Hamilton)
Waters, Sarah The Night Watch (Virago)

Not a year for "big hitters" then - Unsworth, Carey and the oft-overlooked Jacobson apart, not forgetting Nadine Gordimer, join winner 32 years ago, in 1974, something of a record? More recent listees include O'Hagan, Waters and Mitchell - as well as the well reviewed Jon McGregor - and following on from his recent short story prize, James Lasdun gets a look in. Another 2 nominations for Scotland's dynamic Canongate, as well, who won with "Life of Pi". No Tom McCarthy, or Irvine Welsh, so perhaps not the place to come for revolution. Not sure how many of the books are actually in the shops yet - the majority I'd guess. Most interesting inclusion is probably Robert Edric for "Gathering the Water", who'd have thought it? DJ Taylor for one, "Booker judges take note", he ended his recent review.

Li'l Things

The Booker Prize longlist is announced tomorrow, with a month till the shortlist. The longlist, I think, is really a sop to all those big hitters who need to get mentioned in despatches for their latest novel, but probably don't need to win/be shortlisted. A literary titan who doesn't make the longlist might as well pack their bags and go home, I suppose. I've read 3 of last years shortlist, 3 to go - so it's going to be a push to do it before this year's shortlist. I was in Waterstones yesterday and almost got tempted by their 3 for 2 offer, mainly because I wanted to get Michael Cunningham's Specimen Days but it's discounted on Amazon anyhow, and finding the other 2 was going to be problematic. Also, returning tomorrow, an anti-Booker list, if you like, is the next edition of Scarecrow. Tom McCarthy's "Remainder" was finally reviewed in the Guardian yesterday, as was, long overdue, Chris McCabe's debut poetry collection, "The Hutton Report." Will our children remember what the Hutton report was? It's already receding in memory, like the Dreyfuss Affair, or Westland. Yet, elsewhere in that edition, Ruth Padel is another poet talking amongst themselves. Apparently a heckler in the house at the Ledbury Poetry Festival thinks all poetry should rhyme. There was a protest, apparently, from some traditionalists. Since, as she points out, this is an argument that goes back to Wordsworth, and beyond, you'd think the arguers would be treated like flat-earthers. I rhyme occasionally, usually in my lighter verse, it has to be said, and occasionally - as do many others - midline. It's a sad, inevitable fact, that almost without exception, a contemporary poet rhyming will either sound too lighthearted, or simply archaic. This bridge has too long had a river under it.

Start of...something

I'm off work for 3 weeks. People keep saying "where you going?" and I say "Didsbury." Hey, it's nice, I live here, it's got trees. And given that I couldn't even take my glaucoma medication on the plane with me it's probably a good job I didn't book a flight somewhere. So, although I will be going a few exciting places (Edinburgh festival maybe, York races, Stranger Son of W.B. at the Attic) I'm really "buying" creative time. The two things, I definitely want to do are finish my novella (last act's been waiting a while) and put together a self published collection of my short stories. I may keep you informed of progress! I've a new obsession though, and its classic house music - I've started putting together CDs of my house music vinyl from 86-94 and it's just ace. I've loads of this stuff - scarily loads! - at this moment listening to the sublime "Talking with Myself" Electribe 101 by making me ask the question: Why wasn't Billie Ray Martin the biggest star ever?

Helluva Band

God must be putting together a helluva band at the moment. This time a psychedelic one - so, following on from the sad death's of Syd Barrett and Arthur Lee, I read that Tony Ogden, ex-singer with Mancunian legends World of Twist has died aged 44. Definitely from the Syd Barrett school of one-shot genius, World of Twist's 3 classic singles, "The Storm/She's a Rainbow", "Sons of the Stage" and "Sweets" were as good as anything else that came out of Madchester - and if debut album "Quality Street" underperformed (it came out a little too late, if I remember rightly), it's still one I listen to with fondness. Then...nothing. I put together a compilation of Madchester music a couple of years ago, and it was the one-shots like Paris Angels and World of Twist which really stood out. I think the 12" single was the natural format for those bands - either that or the live concert - and having never seen them live, I'd love to hear a World of Twist live recording some time.

And...

I managed a couple of hours of DPercussion, Pipettes and Young Knives, before sloping off to less crowded places. A couple of hours later found myself in the Star and Garter (it was a friend's birthday) and in a nice touch the DJ played "Live and Let Live" and "Alone Again Or". Yesterday morning, I began writing a story, as promised called, "I Forget What 8 is For." I've done this before - take a line from a song and use it as a jumping off point for a story. At one point I was going to "do" a whole album, the Cure's "Pornography" with a story inspired by each of the eight songs. I got as far as the first track, choosing the line "In a High Building there is so much to do" which virtually wrote itself into a story! I've found the Violent Femmes line evocative, and vague enough for me to change the story as I go along. It's not "about" anything or anyone as yet, just a certain mood that I want to convey. It's like the things that happen in a story aren't actually that important, more that they're the outward show of what's going on in the character's lives. I felt that the more so, yesterday, being surrounded, sometimes overwhelmingly so, by so many people. The "going out" bit is the simple bit, the "whys" and "wherefores" are more complex. What I did notice, was that writing early yesterday morning, was cleansing in many ways. I felt light-headed, happy, afterwards. A reminder to write more often, not less.

Alone Again Or

Arthur Lee, singer and leader of Love has died aged 61, after a fight against Leukemia. When I was 15, I had a glossy Encyclopedia of rock, which was full of alluring images of album covers, with band names as mysterious as Captain Beefheart, or as simple as Love. The more I read about their classic "Forever Changes" the more I wanted to hear it. Song titles like "Andmoreagain" and "Alone Again Or" piqued my adolescent interest. When I heard that my current favourites, Aztec Camera sounded like them, that was it. I think I finally got it from the then wonderful Virgin on Bull Street in Birmingham. I liked it from the moment I put the needle to the record, though was perhaps surprised how light sounding it was. For "Forever Changes" despite a couple of rock-out guitar solos is an acoustic record. I still listen to it, that same much played copy from 1982, but also the remastered reissue. Arthur Lee's Love were more than one record to me, though. I love the simple beat-pop of their eponymous debut, and the tight psychedelic classics that form side 1 of "Da Capo" - even side 2's rambling blues "Revelations" - and both "Four Sail" and "Out Here" have some good songs on. But its "Forever Changes" that dominates. Sad, as Syd Barrett's recent death was, eulogies about his genius seem slightly overblown, but I've no doubt in declaring Lee a genius - only the Velvet Underground's debut matches "Forever Changes" as a consummate piece of art from that period. Bryan Maclean, his partner in the band, died a few years ago, but with Lee's passing, it does feel that the sixties is even further away. Of course he toured with a recreated Love over the last few years, even triumphantly replaying "Forever Changes" in its entirety, and, one hopes, received some of the acclaim the band always deserved. Poetry magazines these days can almost seem like obituary columns, and as that sixties generation moves on for one last trip, the music papers are beginning to have a similar feel. As always, though, there is the music.

Cyber Farmers Boys

No doubt when Chris Gribble left Manchester's literary scene for Norwich, as head of the New Writing Partnership, he thought it would be all combine harvesters and hayricks after cybercity Manchester, but no more, Norwich is now England's premier cybercity with wifi whenever you shit, shag and shave - as it turns on ('scuse the pun) the country's biggest wifi network. And it just cost over a mill, which might sound a lot, but given the amount of money the NWDA has spent on broadband projects over the last few years, its a bargain, and also takes a bit of the steam out of Manchester's Digital Challenge, which has free wifi for all as its opening gambit. 2nd only to Norwich hasn't got a good ring to it, really. As I mentioned last post,with Manchester's rarely free wifi, the Cornerhouse could be very full, very soon. If you want to bankrupt Rupert Murdoch this weekend, then take your chance, he's giving away the Godard Rolling Stones movie "Sympathy for the Devil" in the Sunday Times, which is £15.99 at the moment on Amazon. Buy as many copies as you can stand! Okay, his ABC figures will improve, but each copy sold costs him money. Luckily Tony Blair will be back in the country to pick up his copy, after his speaking at Murdoch's annual bash, and meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger. Anyone who thought this was Blair's holiday, interrupted by that unfortunate kerfuffle in the Lebanon, think again, he's only now going on holiday for three weeks. That's right we were PAYING him to meet Schwarzenegger and schmooze with the Digger.

Update

Free Wi-Fi access comes to Manchester, or at least, in the cafe at the Cornerhouse. Might be one for a future Manchester blog-meet. The news that Time Out might be coming to Manchester is both welcome and a bit "so what?" Welcome, because City Life is missed, a bit "so what?" because I've always found Time Out's cultural coverage middle-brow in the extreme. If you want to find a five star review of a Sarah Waters novel or a Zero 7 album here's the place. I'm pleased that its Dpercussion in Castlefield this Saturday - though it usually seems to rain! - and having missed the wondrous Pipettes when the played Life Cafe recently I'm looking forward to that most of all. I've been reading very little, and so been a bit slack on noticing good things even when they're under my nose. So, only just read this great little piece on Scarecrow, "Watching Him Fuck Her" by Janice Erlbaum. The voice just launches off the page from the first line, like a contemporary female Selby Jr.; she blogs as well. Everything I usually hate about writing of course, extreme lifestyle as extreme fiction, but in her case, well, she can actually write, and write funny. Not exactly sure where life ends, art begins, but "whatever." I seem a bit out of sorts today actually, keep coming back to things, head all over the place. Wednesday's are not my good days. First night in for ages just listening to music, which is good in itself. Current favourite listening pleasures are (1) Funhouse - the Stooges (2) Odyssey - Fischerspooner (3) a CD-R of late 80's house music tracks and mixes (inc. Bomb the Bass, One Dove, Future Sound of London, Kym Mazelle et al (4) The Trials of Occupanther - Midlake (5) Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes. (Message to self: need to write a story entitled "I Forgot What 8 is For.")

Things I won't do before I'm forty...

...or ever, for that matter - since today's the last ever Top of the Pops. That's one ambition (never even remotely attempted, so is that ambition, or pipe dream?) thwarted. Appearing on, say, Later With Jools Holland or MTV isn't quite the same somehow. There's been much nostalgia about TOTP in the papers. Favourite moments? New Model Army doing "No Rest (for the wicked)" with "Only Stupid Bastards Take Heroin" t-shirts, but with the BBC insisting on putting gaffa tape over "Astards". The Human League doing "The Sound of the Crowd", Blondie doing "Denis." It's been crap for years of course, and the BBC, as always, does it level best to destroy these institutions - just think of it shunting off Peel to a couple of late nights a week, or its utter hatred of Dr. Who for all those years. It seems unlikely that TOTP will get a Dr. Who style resurrection; but the Beeb has always treated it as a light entertainment show rather than a music show, and in the era of pop idol nobodies, and with the P.Diddy's and Shakira's of the world planning world domination country by country, according to record company marketing departments, its probably not got a remit anymore. Still, its sad. I don't think they ever invited New Model Army back.