Have I fallen out of love with Amazon?

Given that the online booksellers are seen to "blame" for the fall in High Street book sales, its strange how nobody really talks about the problems they are having. I have to say I've been happy with Amazon as long as I've been using it - and I've stuck with books and CDs rather than buying other things from there - yet, there have been signs over the last year or so that we're not as compatible as we used to be. Some time ago they changed their database and search - I think to be in line with their American site - but something went a bit wrong, and you'd search for, say New Order, and get a list of Bruce Springsteen albums; or, looking down a long list what you wanted was there, but if you typed it in by name it was. Then, there's Supersaver delivery. Over a certain amount, if you go for this option, you can get free delivery. Great. Although it takes longer to arrive, that's not a problem - I've just used it for back catalogue - but of course Amazon has to pay for this somehow, and that's by using a wider range of couriers. So, despite the fact that my address has not changed, and I've had literally hundreds of Amazon parcels make it to my door, the Home Delivery Network, which they were using, returned my order to base with a note that "incorrect address." This is the equivalent of a paper boy going round the corner and dumping his papers, rather than delivering them. And I know what's happened - some address software gets confused because although I live in a flat, the block itself has got a number, not that I know it or its part of my address, but it means that when they ask for your postcode and number their software doesn't register. But, although they got back to my query really quickly, being an automated system, there's not a lot I can do other than reorder the items. Yet, guess what? two of the items have gone up in price since then - one considerably. I noticed this before Xmas, when everything in my "save for later" box went up one week, then after Xmas, went down again. I could reorder but it does seem hard work. Whereas Parcelforce would always leave it at my door or allow easy collection, these new "cheaper" services have so far left me in the lurch, arranging a Saturday morning delivery, or collecting it from the delivery person's house! Its not that it's bad, its just not that convenient. No such thing as a free (lunch) delivery I'm afraid. I'm sanguine about it. I used to love Waterstones before it started treating me like all its other lovers, and though Amazon was a distant relationship I thought we'd never fall out. Never mind, I'm already flirting with download services for music; having occasional triestes with Fopp when I want to get physical; and can't see much wrong with buying direct from publishers for books that I really can't get elsewhere. I'll pay Amazon the proper postage from now on, since like any separation, I like to keep things civilised between us; after all, they used to give me something I couldn't easily get elsewhere. (And, don't tell, but I've been whispering in the ear of Amazon.com for some while yet, something about that American accent, that makes you fall for the transatlantic cousin...)

Thanks Jim Jarmusch

I found the film "Broken Flowers" a little too languid for its own good, but the seventies Ethiopian funk music used on the soundtrack stayed with me , long after the film was forgotten. Amongst the various things on my emusic wants list, waiting for my downloads to refresh, the series of Ethiopiques albums has been a real priority - and having listened to the volume that contains the "Broken Flowers" tracks, I feel like I've just discovered a new obsession. Volume 4, which is full of the music of Mulatu Astatke is destined to dominate my stereo for weeks I think. Utterly remarkable music, exotic, funky, stylish, fervent, freeform, composed; thanks Jim Jarmusch.

Good Things

Its been a goodweek. I enjoyed the Matchbox launch in the darkness of the upstairs room of The Thirsty Scholar, with the trains pelting by overhead as accompaniment to the rhythms of the 2 poets. (See Steven Waling's blog for a fuller review.) There was a good crowd, and the literati were well in evidence, at least the more discerning end of that crowd. Last time I saw something in Thirsty Scholar it was some disturbingly loud post-rock band. The hush of poetry was, I think, better all round. The new Parameter Magazine was hot off the presses - and a good range of material in it on a first sampling. Next literary session is at the Central Library this coming Friday at 1.00, where new Salt authors Neil Campbell and David Gaffney read from their respective new short story collections.

Boxin' Match: Allen Fisher v Scott Thurston

A reminder: this Wednesday, the estimable Matchbox hosts its first "event", not in a matchbox, but in somewhere (slightly) bigger. Allen Fisher and Scott Thurston will be reading at the Thirsty Scholar on Oxford Road in Manchester on Wednesday 21st March at 6.30. And its free. I will get over my allergy to literary events to attend this one, I promise. Elsewhere, Scarecrow has returned from hibernation with an offbeat generation/brutalist online anthology. Here be monsters, methinks. And the equally offbeat, Unquiet Desperation, is expanding into cities in America and elsewhere - distributed free in locations around the world since 2005 - its editor tells me that new editions are sprouting up in various US cities, and wonders why the Americans seem to get it, but the British don't. (See earlier posts about Waterstones etc. for a duh, yeah about that.)

Enduring Modernists

I'm envious of my fellow Brit Lit bloggers who made what sounded like an excellent event in London, with Gabriel Josipovici, entitled "Whatever Happened to Modernism?" Good precis of the event from the Sharp Side and This Space. I went to the V&A's "Modernism" exhibition last year and was interested how modernism has many facets - the V&A, naturally, concentrating on architecture and design, rather than literature, music and painting. This is where the problems lie of course. For on the one hand modernism is a distinct movement at a distinct time, and the modernist impulse, could, one thinks, be seen as being almost entirely related to that time; and that if we are now in a period where none of that impulse or influence is still there - or, if its so dissipated by assimilation - then with time passing that's hardly a surprise. I've written before that I consider "Finnegan's Wake" or "The Making of the Americans" a cul-de-sac from which there is no return; for unlike the visual arts, abstraction in the written arts is almost always a negative. In fact, the best modernist writing would be against abstraction - would be about a determined clarity. That clarity in the visual is about releasing paint from it being a representative art, and making it explicit for its own sake. But just as modernism never really took hold in English architecture, design or painting, it didn't really take hold in English literature either; sometimes for very good political reasons. (In architecture and design the conflation of modernism with a certain type of systemic oppression is where the English, for all our faults, find a distinction - is the modernist impulse illiberal? might be the question that is implicit in an English rejection of it.) But from what I can gather from this lecture - and the comments on it - what is in play now is the issue of artistic complacency, where a form is appropriated without consideration of the birth pains of that form. I suppose the "breaking of the pentameter" of free verse would be a good example; Pound certainly never meant it to mean free, as in without responsibility. Like a Stuckist painter, unable to comprehend that the failure of their argument is not Painting vs. other artforms, a contemporary novelist/short story writer/poet who is simply filling a particularly shaped box (named: novel, poem, story) without considering why that box is in any way appropriate (or not), IS essentially complacent. Importantly, modernist writing is not necessarily better than a non-modernist one; (a minor imagist vs. Tennyson for instance), but the intent will have an effect over time. I wouldn't disagree if it is that Josipovici still thinks that English literature is "narrow, provincial and smug" - though I'd be interested to know how the word "Provincial" is used. It is a long time since British writing has had the confidence of authority (perhaps the sense of a "great" country passing on to its literature), yet I would doubt whether it has ever had a sense of radicalism. Those of us who appreciate its wider merits realise, regrettably, that we're working in an inherently conservative artform. Yet English writing is peculiar as well in that it is not tentative - how can it be? with such a long lineage - and this is where the smugness can come from I think. I was talking with a friend about "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith, and we can neither of us understand the level of acclaim given the book. Whereas its source material, "Howard's End", has a particular historical moment behind its structure, Smith's reworking is merely a convenient trope, no more than "Bridget Jones' Diary" reworking "Pride and Prejudice." Yet, Smith is a writer who certainly appreciates modernism, even if she doesn't aspire to more than its range of ideas. Confidence without responsibility is the often hollow centre of the English novel or poem.

Bookslops

I don't think anyone who reads/buys books regularly will be surprised at the news that Waterstones (aka HMV) has got caught napping by the nation's book/CD buying habits and is having to look at its business again. I used to go to Waterstones all the time, but what would be the point nowadays? An example. Although I'd already bought it from Amazon, when I was in the slick new Arndale Waterstones a week or two ago, I looked through their poetry shelf to see if they had the new Faber collected Louis Macniece. Bear in mind this is a well-reviewed book, by a respected publisher, in the anniversary year of the poet. Nowhere to be seen. But of course, I wasn't surprised, and it hardly mattered, because I'd already got it from Amazon at a discount. This was a book I'd heard about through the usual ways - the books pages of the Times and Guardian (in articles on Macneice rather than a review per se), and which Amazon had kindly pointed me to. Imagine that scenario happening with every other book lover - no wonder Waterstones etc. finds its sales down. HMV would be the same. Whereas I will still make a date with Fopp, because you simply never know what you'll find there (and you always find something), HMV and Waterstones are as dull and predictable as the Tesco vegetable counter. Apparently, Robert Topping, who used to run Waterstones in Manchester in his glory days, is opening a new bookshop in Bath. That will no doubt be worth going to next time you're in that town; whilst I read with interest (albeit with a little amazement, given how complex it used to be to actually buy a book there!) that Foyles is opening a branch at the new St. Pancras. We are, perhaps, developing "Intellectual markets" to join our "Farmers Markets", and the venerable corporates are left to become bookslops, where only the endless mediocre detritus of the mainstream publishing industries will find a ready market.

Outsiders

I'm thoroughly enjoying Colin Wilson's autobiography "Dreaming to Some Purpose." I've never read anything he's written before but he's a very engaging host through England of the 50s and 60s. The 50s London of scarey landladies and clandestine affairs, against a backdrop of little money, and snobbishness against anyone from the provinces is wonderfully evoked. Yet, if in the first few chapters he's living a British "On the Road", sleeping rough on Hampstead Heath, hitchhiking round Paris, the litany of mundane jobs - dishwashing, factory work etc - and the need for a provincial morality and security gives it an entirely different cut. Like other upwardly mobile provincial writers of the 50s, like Burgess and Amis, he's more at home in the British Library than in the literary parties. His candidness is refreshing, and there's a general puzzlement that so many of the people he liked and thought he got on with, so disliked him in return. An incredibly prolific author - there was a bit of a flurry of interest last year on the 50th anniversary of the Outsider - his interests in a certain type of philosophy as well as any sort of ephemara - mean that I'm probably getting the best of him in this book; but so what? It's gripping, gossipy, (meetings with John Braine and Albert Camus are particularly good) self-mythologising, anecdotal, all-over-the-place and good fun. I rarely read of "men of letters" who you'd actually like to meet in the flesh, but you get the feeling that Wilson would be good company.

Five Short Stories

I've read 5 short stories in the last few days. "The Misogamist" by Andre Dubus (from "Finding a Girl in America") was an unsettling story about a soldier at the end of the second world war, and his fiancee waiting for him back home. Unsettling, as always with Dubus, in that you're put straight there in front of the emotions, without more than the vaguest hint of a back story. I then read "Under the Dam" by David Constantine (from the collection of the same name), and was frustrated by its deliberate avoidance of telling. It's a slippery story that I never quite got hold of, though maybe I'll go back to it. Then, China Mieville's "Familiar" and Jonathan Lethem's "The Dystopianist" (both from Conjunctions 39: the New Fabulists.) Both were bravado pieces that left me a little disappointed at the end. Mieville really grabs you from the start, in the nastiest possible way, and like watching something terrible happen, you can't pull your eyes away; but there's perhaps too much "difference" in the story - a witch, an old woman, a familiar - that means you can never rediscover the ground on which the story began. Lethem's is much more humorous - its like something out of "Heroes", the new Sci-Fi Channel series I've been watching, crossed with a bit of Terry Pratchett - but a sloppy ending. Then, from the last Transmission magazine, Rozalinda Buyong's "The Fragrant Farewell". It was strongly written with good characters, but felt it wasn't so much a short story as part of a longer piece. I've loads of short story books/collections/magazines around here, and I think this is the way to approach them; story at a time, dipping in and out.

Beautiful McSweeneys

Unswayed as I have been by recent Mcsweeneys, the latest - issue 22 - is a beautiful gem. In a lovely hardback cover, 3 "mini" books are collected together and held there by magnets. Of course! A selection by the wonderful OuLiPo; stories inspired by a list of F. Scott Fitzgerald's unused story ideas; and most intrigueing of all for McSweeneys, a poetry collection - which, admirably (and somewhat OuLiPo-like) creates "poetry chains" by choosing 10 poems by 10 poets, getting them to choose one of their own poems and then to choose another poet, creating an anthology (keep with me) of 100 poems by 50 poets linked in 10 chains. The sheer beauty of it all is breathtaking, and makes me wonder again, how come the Americans can do this sort of stuff, and we can't? Go on, I'll start...

***

P.S. Appropriate to mention here, Granta's new edition, Best Young American Novelists. I've felt for a while that just as we no longer read fiction in translation, we don't really take much interest in American fiction, and McSweeney's has at least created a reason to. Whether this new list of under 35-year-old writers will do so, is another question. There seem so many interchangeable writers nowadays. There are only 2 of these writers who featured in "The Burned Children of America" anthology a couple of years ago, perhaps on age alone. According to the Guardian lots of these writers haven't written a novel yet, so the whole premise is a bit flakey for a start. (Though I've always loved how Helen Simpson gets on every British list, deservedly, yet still refuses to write a novel!) More flakey, is that "class" is the great unspoken in American literature (and society), yet, at the same time a majority of these writers are "ivy league." Ho hum. I'm concerned now. It's a truth universally acknowledged by parents of a certain financial standing that paying for your kids to get into a posh school/college will give them a bit of a leg up. So, perhaps that's why we've got all these precocious under-35 year olds. That said, as always, I look forward to reading it. Every anthology has its moments.

"This century's biggest art movement: Careerism"

Thanks to the always useful Arts & Letters Daily for highlighting this wonderful article from Dushko Petrovich calling for a practical avant garde. There's little point in me paraphrasing an essay that is so well written, and more importantly, addresses an important point - that whether you use the words "avant garde" or "reactionary", the aim of the game needs to be the same, to identify good work and then find a way of doing it. He takes the simple (but complex) artistic need for a "rectangle" and sketches (he's writing about visual art) its relationship to both past and contemporary art. The avant garde needs to be able to get beyond the word "interesting" and embrace "good", whilst the reactionaries won't get anywhere calling everything they don't understand "bad." For painting, perhaps also for literature, as we see ReadySteadyBook and This Space come out fighting in favour of quality. From National Poetry Day to the national curriculum, through the BBC's "great read" to your average Waterstone's, its not so much a dumbing down that we see, but an anti-intellectualism; a reluctance to envisage that anything that isn't instantly accessible is worth the effort. Its like the whole guilty pleasures thing seems to be a figleaf for those people who are often being paid to be intellectual (e.g. academics, reviewers, columnists) to elevate the mundane, rather than ignore it. I'm a lover of pop culture, whether its music, film or TV, but though I might proclaim greatness for Blondie, Goodfellas and "24", I wouldn't say the same, for, say, Take That, The Phantom Menace and Big Brother. It doesn't make them necessarily bad (though I'll argue with you about that), but it doesn't make them interesting. If all this pop-culture-as-high-art began with the Modern Review, we can probably see now, how ironic we must have been allowing Julie Burchill and Toby Young as our creative czars.

Isn't creativity great?

It's sometimes too easy to forget why you create what you do, why you spend so many hours doing it, trying to get things right. It would be no lie to say that over the last couple of years, I've felt a real tension between having always been creative, and, on the other hand, a reluctance to commit to doing anything. Partly its been time and energy (though I always found it in the past), and partly a genuine sense that I didn't know what I was doing it for anymore (dreams of fame and fortune, if I ever had them had long gone, and the "peer group" that had probably sustained me for a good few years, was looking a little thin on the ground). But also, its partly about what I've been creating. I've always enjoyed writing fiction, and endured writing poetry - the first requiring a different mindset than the latter - even if I take a lot of satisfaction from having continued to do both. I also think I'm a better fiction writer, though, it has to be said, without much evidence either way of late. So last year I finished the first draft of a novella, and wrote a couple of very strong stories, all of which I'm proud of; and collected another group of poems that I'm still wrestling with - uncertain about. But I don't think any of this could be classed as "fun." From when I was about 16 - for at least a decade - my main creative outlet was musical, and recently after a couple of years of doing nothing at all in this area, I decided to have another go. So the last month, any chance I've had, I've set up the new 8-track and started writing/recording a song. The 4 songs I've recorded are all very different, (though not necessarily that different from what I always used to record!), and more than that, I've really enjoyed writing them, singing them, listening to them, and now, putting them on a CD. It's so much fun! Versions of all 4 songs are now on my Myspace, if you're at all interested in this other persona. And it is a persona - since I think what I bring to songwriting is a sense of character, a sense of drama. I'm not trying to write generic songs for James Blunt, but create a little self-contained world in music, similar to what I would do in a story. Got to go, I've got some more recording to do!

A New Centre for New Writing

I was prescient that the University of Manchester would have to up its game a little with the appointment of Martin Amis as a "professor." Here's the meat - they've just advertised a 0.65 post as a Lecturer in Creative Writing to help develop the University's "Centre for New Writing," though at little more than 15k for the privilege, it probably rules out such literary heavyweights as, oh, me! The new centre has 2 other writers alongside Amis, Patricia Duncker, who was at UEA, and Vona Groarke, a poet. I'd not heard of the latter, though she appears to have come through the "irish studies" route, and not read either of them; but Amis apart it seems a quite typical department, probably 3 parts pragmatism to 1 part bohemian. The university will, I'm sure, make money. What interest me more is that use, again, of the term, "New Writing." This follows on from East Anglia's "New Writing Partnership", and, if you go back a bit, the British Council's "New Writing" anthology. When we started "Lamport Court" it was deliberately given a longer title, "Lamport Court New Writing." I felt then, as now, that "new" had 2 meanings -: new as in new voices, and new as in innovative. It's not something you can necessarily create as an editor, but you can foster it. The "new writing" phrase in Academia seems a lot less "new" than that. It's not merely age - Amis and Duncker were born a year either side of 1950 - but a sense that any cultural movement needs a changing-of-the-guard, a kicking over statues, where the previous generation simply don't understand. There's been quite a lot on the blogs recently about the meaning of "literary" - I've always felt the term is self evident - but even in the 20 years since I left university, the counter-cultural novel of the 50s and 60s, whether "Last Exit to Brooklyn", B.S. Johnson, or "The Dharma Bums" has risen in significance, from being seen as maybe something worthy of thematic study ("the beats", "modernism") - and certainly not literary - to being the only literary writing that has lasted. So, here's to new writing! (But not too much of it.)

The Secondhand Value of a Download

A very measured post from Scott Pack on digital downloads, and why he thinks whereas the music industry has seen "revolution" the publishing industry will see "evolution." A couple of points: although I can see that books might come with an "unlock key" so you buy the physical book and perhaps that gives you access to the e-version as well, this sort of hybrid, though good in principal never seems to work in practice, mainly because it tends to be marketing driven - and, actually too costly to maintain beyond the short term. I agree that books, by their very nature, will remain a little immune to being replaced by the download version. I keep asking friends "what's the second hand value of a download?" and the answer, of course, is nothing. The music industry seems a little oblivious to this (but then, it still insists on Digital Rights Management to restrict what you can do with what you've legitimately paid for.) I think - with the whole history of 1st editions, hardbacks, trade paperbacks etc. - this is a genuine loss - and would actually mean there wasn't, in reality, much of a publishing industry left. What intrigues me is whether the Print-on-demand option will create a market for bespoke books. I think the difficulties of doing this at the moment probably mean the answer is "no", but I could easily imagine a Faber or someone else with a good backlist, letting you choose your favourite poems to create your own personalised anthology and letting you pay a premium for it. I could imagine it, but don't think, as yet, there's anything like that level of inventiveness in the industry.

***

I am writing this at the same time as digitising some records - I'm not entirely sure why, but it is oddly satisfying, as one of the comments on Scott's blog makes clear. I use a little piece of software called Polderbits, a Dutch company, which is by far the best and easiest thing I've found for chopping up albums into tracks. I use a little pre-amp that cost me about £50, but I think you can get them from Maplin and places for about half that these days. At the time of writing: I've been listening to New Age Steppers, Royal Trux and the Dream Syndicate.

Ownership of your art

Interesting post from Elizabeth Baines, post-Milan Kundera, about the artist's right to be in control of their work. It should go without saying that this is the case, but I know Elizabeth isn't the only writer I've met who has been advised/forced/encouraged by their intermediaries to change the book. What's astonishing is the extent of that change on some occasions, with editors (or increasingly agents) taking on an "executive producer" role on the novel. I often quote Martin Amis's literary fable "Career Move", since it hits so many of these things straight on. Here, poets are as Hollywood scriptwriters, and the "poem" is the property of a whole army of consultants, specialists, producers and actors. From this, of course, we don't necessarily get great art. Yet, in cinema, the "auteur"-led project has, I'd think, been no better or worse than the studio approach. I was amazed when I found out that Coppola was just a hired hand on the first "Godfather" movie, after many others had been touted - he, of course, with Puzo, made this story, particularly his own - but the film would have been made without him. (Something you couldn't say about Woody Allen's recent "Match Point" for instance.) I don't actually think there's much interest in the artist nowadays - at least not in literature. Writers seem to be increasingly malleable, or, to be more charitable, happy to go along with the realpolitik of their industry. Yet, unlike most other artforms, writers don't actually NEED the other people that might be necessary in music, theatre, cinema etc. In my own occasional jousts with the "real publishing industry" what has always shocked me has been the contrast between their view of the professionalism required in their part of the process, with that of me, as the writer. A writer, I always got the sense, was almost the disposable part. The idea of a personal vision, or an articulation of that, unheard of. In short, I don't think agents, publishers or these other intermediaries trust writers to do their part of the job. Yet ironically it seems the other way round - and that the marketing end of the business often fails to do the very few things that are asked of them. A friend who had an academic book published was perplexed to find that her publisher was asking her where it should be sent. One of the frustrating thing about any job of work is not your own part of the enterprise (which you're usually quite good at) but a sense that you end up doing everyone else's job for them. I can well imagine that a publisher would say that a book didn't sell because it wasn't available in enough shops/or because the cover didn't appeal/or because some piece of marketing didn't come up, and somehow blaming all these things on the author. "Oh, your book didn't sell." Yet look at it the other way - the author has fulfilled their part of the bargain, writing the damn thing. But I do sympathise with the compromises that everyone has to occasionally go through. I was annoyed a few years ago when an editor changed the last couple of lines of a story I'd written, and only told me when they were on the way into print. Annoyed, but not overly bothered - yet had the story been reprinted somewhere I'd have insisted on the original. I tend to write fiction that responds to the "idea" and does that with integrity. Sometimes, this means my short story is actually too long, or my novel is actually too long. If I was Zadie Smith I guess I'd probably be allowed to get away with this (at least the first time!), but as I'm not I'm somehow supposed to write something of a prescribed marketable length. The irony is, that having no publisher to please, I'm surely going to just write what I consider integral to the piece. Decoupled from the publishing world, as I am, the only pressure is the one that comes from inside: to own the piece of work. In this, I'm beginning to think, is where I really am an avant garde writer! Yet I can't help thinking that in a culture where productivity (and over-productivity) comes cheap, this distinction, about what a writer really wants to write, having some moral value, is one that the publishing industry has little interest in, and even less understanding of.

Strange Signs

I took the afternoon off, and found time to go to Paramount books, the secondhand shop on Shude Hill. Like other 2nd hand bookshops I've visited lately, the prices seem to have risen and the range gone down - the unintended consequences of internet selling, I guess. I bought two books, science fiction writer Bob Shaw's "A Wreath of Stars" and Stuart Home's "Tainted Love." Here's from the first page of "A Wreath of Stars" -: "Snook was determined to do much the same thing on his linear course from birth towards death, and - at the age of forty - was well on the way to achieving his aim." And here's the first line of Stuart Home's novel, "when I was 40 I decided I wanted to meet my (m)other." I didn't read either first pages in the shop, just they were books I was interested in having, I checked the price and condition, but that was all. Now what is the likelihood that I could pick up two books, of the many in the shop, which mentioned being "40/forty" on the first page? Never mind that I'm going to be 40 on Sunday. Strange signs indeed - but I always knew that Shude Hill and its bookshops exuded magic, and wrote about it in "The Four Hills of Manchester." That 4 again, as well...

Class of '97

It was about this time a decade ago that I had an interview for the MA in creative writing at UEA. It was an interesting thing. I'd applied the previous year but, obviously too late, got a gnomic response which said, but "try again next year". I didn't even have to send something new in. Anyway I went for the interview - the first time, though it seems hard to believe in retrospect, that I'd ever even met some other writers - and Andrew Motion, who was interviewing gave us all an overview of the course. I was the only male among the 5 being interviewed, and at the time Motion was on heavy painkillers for a back problem, which meant by the time I went in, last, they were clearly wearing off. We had a nice chat for 20 minutes, mostly about poetry, (I'd applied to do fiction!) and that was it. I didn't get on. Not that I was too surprised, since 2 of the other 4 being interviewed were already published novelists (both did get on!) and the others were a nice elderly woman who'd been published by the London Magazine, and one of those "Isn't my lecturer?" wonderful English 1st students from Oxford. Anyway, it did make me think - yeah, I'd like to do this, really. I went to the campus bookshop after the interview and picked up "The Game" by Frances Liardet (she was one of the 2 published novelists being interviewed!) an impressive debut novel that she appears never to have followed up. A few weeks later I was interviewed at Manchester, by a relaxed and convivial Richard Francis (where we mostly talked about fiction!) who said, at the end, "don't worry, you're on the course." I've never regretted that choice. What was a shame was that by the Christmas, Michael Schmidt had virtually pulled out of the course for much of the 2nd semester, and, by the time my novel was ready to be submitted, Richard had also left. It was marked by one of their successor's Suzannah Dunn, a nice woman I met a couple of times, but whom I never had a single conversation with about my actual novel. Richard, at Bath Spa, and Michael at MMU, went on to departments that took it all far more seriously than Manchester. The week that I moved between London and Manchester was the week Princess Diana died, so I had a weird few days in a half empty flat watching endless cavalcades of people on a pilgrimage to Hyde Park to put down flowers. I was reminded by this by the success of "The Queen." Its worth remembering that the death of Diana, and the Queen's original perceived indifference to it, almost looked like bringing the monarchy down at the time! Diana's brother's speech at her funeral became a set text in English classes in schools - and "Candle in the Wind" rewritten by Elton John became the bestselling single of all time. My own novel, that I wrote on the MA, began on election night 1997, but ended the weekend before her death. My Class of '97 I still feel very fondly about. It was a very civilised group - none of the factions that other years have seen develop, from what I hear. Mark Powell got a 2 book deal with Victor Gollancz a few months after completing his course, and had 2 good London-based thrillers, "Snap" and "Box", which got a bit lost in publishing politics (in quick succession he lost his imprint and his editor.) He now lives in the US. Heather Beck, already an academic, quickly went with Michael to the creative writing course at the MMU, where she finally published her course novel "Home is Where" with Comma Press. Always a fastidious writer, she doesn't appear to have followed it up. Lee Rourke, resurfaced a few years later in Brighton and London, with his Scarecrow web-zine, and now, a decade on, a forthcoming book, "Everyday." Others from the course: Stephanie and Greg have continued their previous work, teaching English and photography respectively, though Greg has continued writing, and had a successful exhibition collaborating with the photographer Dinu Li a few years ago; Seb emigrated to Australia; Samantha is back working in radio for Radio Shropshire; and Alan is now a journalist back home in Northern Ireland. I've not really heard anything from Lisa, Sarah and Doug for years; and Peter, a German writer, who left the course half way through, though I'd heard had gone back to Germany. As for me, I'm sat here, writing a blog, about the Class of '97, ten years on, still creative, but in another career cul-de-sac, not that dissimilar than the one I found myself in a decade ago, wondering...what next?

The Deerhunter

I had to share the lovely news that David Cameron, Tory leader, often seen as being in favour of all things green, and frequently worrying about the guns in our inner cities, likes nothing more than shooting deer, and is a good shot, often going to his wife's stepfather, Viscount Astor's country estate to do it. Whereas his youthful pot smoking can be put down to the quality of an Eton education, and is at least open to most people who've got a dodgy scally mate, I don't remember ever getting a chance to go shooting deer myself. I think we can easily get too het up about the bloodsports issue, compared with factory farming etc. etc. but there seems something so deliciously "of type" for such a high caste Tory, about David's newly unearthed hobby. And I know for a fact that there's more than a little crossover between the eco-greens and vegetarianism, which might put Cameron permanently off the plate as a voting option, however many wind turbines he installs. Surprisingly, or not, given the bad news values of our press, its not been particularly big news. Now, if only someone can get a picture of him with his first kill!

Some stuff

Tom at Parameter Magazine kindly pointed out that I'd finally made the blogs-about-books column in Saturday's Guardian. So you can read my blog to be pointed to an online article which is an extract from my blog. Isn't that clever? I'd not got the Guardian having been tempted by the free hardback of "A Clockwork Orange" in the Independent. For the next 24 weeks you can get a hardback "banned book" for £3.50, and with a list including quite a few I've not got - and quite a few where my wellworn paperback is looking decidedly shabby - if I can work out how the offer actually works, I may build up a little collection this way. The mysterious minds of marketing departments. And here's another one. Apparently, the first "benefit" I'm going to get of NTL becoming Virgin Media, is that Sky One is likely to be pulled from air this week. What has flabbergasted me is that that they're moaning that Sky was charging too much and so its all Sky's fault. I don't care. All I know is that a package that I've been paying for, with certain channels included, Sky One and Sky News for instance, is suddenly going to not include them. How NTL/Virgin pays for them is their own problem. So, tonight's "24" could be my last! Where will I get my torture-fix from now? Well, it is work tomorrow. Since I'm probably going to be too busy to blog over the next week or so, its worth me mentioning a reading organised by Matchbox magazine at the Thirsty Scholar in Manchester on March 21st, with Allan Fisher and Scott Thurston. So a little while away, but worth putting in your diary.

Critical Cultures

Perhaps inevitably the Guardian, having absently referred to Martin Amis as possibly our greatest living writer, decided a more scientific approach was needed. Yep, they asked the audience! Or rather anyone they could get on phone/email the day before the article, with the winners being Pinter, Stoppard, Lessing and Naipaul. Its always a spurious pastime this one, like looking for the world's oldest person, as soon as they find one, they die. Lets hope those 4 have a little more life left in them. We might be best just sticking with the nobel winning Pinter, currently being revived for his little masterpiece "Dumb Waiter" (a version of which I saw at the Edinburgh festival 2 years ago and loved). With 123 comments on their blog and counting, I'm hardly wanting to add to the spurious conversation. What interested me more was the somewhat degraded critical culture we have nowadays. I guess when questions such as this got asked in the past, there was a sense that (a) literature mattered, (b) that its finest practitioners were something more than "mere" writers and (c) the whole culture benefitted from acknowledging these collosi. For a start...writer of what? The "accident" of our greatest writer, Shakespeare being a playwright, has perhaps given playwrighting a little more kudos than it deserves. I can read Pinter's plays, and one or two others, but Stoppard, despite being such a verbaliser certainly needs the active stage. In fact, seeing "Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead" last week, I was struck by, despite it being an assured performance, what a period piece it risked becoming, and mostly it was the reverance for every one of Stoppard's weaker pieces of wordplay. He was a young writer, when he wrote it, and I felt he was ill-served by the too faithful version. Yet, if a playwright isn't known by his words, then how important a writer is he? And if a playwright, why not a screenwriter? I don't think an American audience would be claiming great literariness for Tarantino, or even Robert Townes, yet the film or the the TV play seems more vital to our culture than the theatre. That leaves just poetry and fiction; the first having so little cultural power in the UK, whilst the latter being so market-driven, that its hard to make a case for most practitioners of either. (And I'd say there are very few who write both poetry and prose to a consistently high level.) And then what is "English" in this context? The Irish writer? The commonwealth writer? The stateless writer? Again, its the Booker definitition of anyone but the Americans but also including those domiciled here. Born or living in Britain (make that London) and they're a British writer it seems. Which, given our love of Conrad, Eliot, Pound and James, never mind sundry Irishmen, seems only fair. But then we have the arguments that make those of us who occasionally still care about English literature scream; namely, the votes for writers who are children's writers (Rowling and Pullman), or commercial writers (bloody John Le Carre again), or this year's thing (Zadie, David Mitchell, Sarah Waters.) Any argument that can include all these different criteria clearly needs a good look at the question. Probably Alvarez, that unfashionable type of writer - a good critic - puts it best, "greatness has to do with range - and character....There has to be some kind of moral force in great writing...and an inward quality that shows in the rhythm of the prose." By this description (as good as one that we'll find), the thriller writers, the children's writers, the young writers, and the like wouldn't even enter the argument. Alvarez wouldn't apply the word "great" to any British living writer. It's hard to disagree.

The Return of Khan Singh Kumar

A few years ago there was a little controversy in the Rialto about a poem that had, if I remember correctly, appeared elsewhere, and a worry that the poet who'd written it wasn't real but a pseudonym. Khan Singh Kumar, a plausible enough name to us deaf English ears, but unpick it, and see what you've got is a common muslim, sikh and hindu name in one person. Daljit Nagra has been picking at our preconceptions for a while yet, and I was a little suspicious of the blanket positive reviews of his debut Faber collection "Look we have coming to Dover!" until I read the poem "Booking Khan Singh Kumar" and remembered that Rialto controversy. Nagra is acutely aware of the advantages and disadvantages of being a "punjabi" poet, even if his parents came to England in the 1950s, (about the same time my parents were meeting up in Walsall). Through hook and crook, he's negotiated the myriad requirements of an "ethnic poet", by being ethnic when he wants to be, and not when he doesn't. KSK it appears, was a bit of a performance poet, and makes occasional appearances in this collection. But Daljit can "do" punjab, like I can do Brummy, as a bit of a turn. It would be better if the collection was called "Contradiction, and?" rather than the faux Lawrence immigrant misphrasing of "Look we have coming to Dover!" Faber knows what its doing, of course, yet its a fascinating thing that several decades after "A House for Mr. Biswas", a non-white indian-origin poet has to fall back into idiom to get noticed. That he revels in these contradictions is a somewhat remarkable triumph, and though I'm sure Matthew Hollis at Faber is revelling in the good reviews and the "new voice", they're still pushing Daljit's ethnicity as something new, rather than - what they should be doing - is noting his sense of humour and his self-awareness. I'm as sucker as the next man for a new voice, and you can't argue with a poem called "Kabba Questions the Ontology of Representation, the catch 22 for "black" writers", with its disdain for "the HBC" of "'eaney, blake and clarke". Yet its the richness of experience elsewhere, and the self-awareness that makes this a joyful collection, not the political labels. I happen to think the award winning title poem is a bit of a misfire, full of the worst kind of assimilated English poetry, and the patois of the opener"Darling & Me" is disjointed, albeit entertaining; yet elsewhere its a refreshing collection. New voice? Yes, I think so, but not necessarily because his parents were born in India.

Martin Amis Lives Upstairs (or at least in the humanities building)

It's fascinating to hear that Martin Amis is to be the new Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Manchester. The new university has stated its ambitions, and this must be a sign that it means them, though one wonders how this one came to pass - coinciding as it does with his return from Uruguay - did Amis's agent tout him around or did the University wine and dine him? I suspect a bit of both. But what's more intrigueing is what is he actually going to be "professor of." I studied on the MA in creative writing there in 1997-1999, which was then four or five years into its life, created by Michael Schmidt and Richard Francis, and so unloved by the university that it wasn't even in the English department (which seemed to be mostly made up of Anglo-Saxon experts) but in American Studies. Richard left for Bath Spa, and Michael moved to MMU, taking not only himself, but quite a lot of kudos with him. Although for a couple of years after I finished I would meet fellow alumni of the University course, since 2001 or so, the only people I've met on the Manchester literary scene have come from the Writing School at MMU. The University's course had, as far as I knew, withered a little on the vine. Yet, Amis's arrival will surely require more than just a continuation of what's already gone on. I would imagine a flood of applicants - particularly from overseas. For too long English writers have been sniffy about these saw of roles, whilst universities, often happy to employ a certain kind of academic timeserver, have been sniffy about writers as somehow not "proper" intellectuals. No more, it seems. Rather than a berth for a hard-up poet, we've now got the most legendary of English writers. I hope the university gives him the support he needs (not least in fielding the much greater application postbag you might expect.) Checking on their site, they do at least have a poetry strand as well, which will be interesting. Amis, despite his father being a poet as well as a novelist, never having shown much interest here. I've his essay collection here, "The War Against Cliche", and there's Milton and Donne (that first at Oxford, remember?) but not much recent. I hope he finds time for the poets as well as the novelists; and of the novelists, avoids like a plague, those - like myself, I have to admit - who were so enraptured by his style c. "Money." It makes a lot of sense in many ways, him taking on such a role, and in Manchester as well. There's no Ladbroke Grove here; but he might wander down Stockport Road and check out the melting pot of Levenshulme. But more than that - Amis has always been serious about what he does - so like him, or loathe him, (I remain firmly in the former camp), he is a voice to be reckoned with; authoritative even when he is wrong. It's interesting that in the Guardian feature he talks about having become more right wing in being away; and finding fault with the increasing anti-Israeli, anti-American bias he finds in the UK. He's right about that - much of it's hysterical - but he might find himself a target, being here. After all, the Mancunian left is very pro-Palestine, and sees any opposition to America or Israel as an unfortunate byproduct of that belief, rather than as something to be worried about unduly. I imagine a few robust chats with Terry Eagleton in the corridors of power; though as always these professorships don't guarantee attendance. Manchester is no Ivy League campus; I doubt we'll find him in Kro2 or the Sand Bar, like his equivalents at MMU. I'm particularly intrigued - as well as jealous that he's come here so long after my own masters - because he's been more than just an indirect influence on my writing. One of my few published stories (in Main Street Journal) was a tale of literary paranoia called "Martin Amis Lives Upstairs." What was - then - a fiction, could a decade on, be something of a truth.

Waiting for Stoppard

I'm going to see Rosencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead at the Library Theatre tomorrow. Looking forward to it - I studied the play for A level over 20 years ago, but have only ever seen it live once, so it will be interesting to see how much of it I remember. An overdue bit of culture, I think, having spent more time standing up in front of an audience lately, than being in an audience. I'm having very vivid dreams at the moment, and got lots of half-formed poems and songs bouncing around my head like they've o.d'd on caffeine. "Loosely" the collection I was going to put together as a pamphlet around Christmas, already seems to be unrepresentative of what I'm currently writing, so I've put it on hold for now. I'm reading a very long novel at the moment, and at the current rate - about 10 pages a day - it will be Christmas before I'm done.

Musings

I've been "upgraded" which seems slightly sinister, but really means that I can just use some of the new Blogger features, whether I want to or not. That's the thing with technology, it will never just leave you alone... There's a new edition online of the excellent Barcelona Review, and it even includes a Quiz about music and literature, which makes me think I should maybe do my own quiz one of these days on the blog. It all seemed a little heavy metal for me - surely its not just bad music that's got literary pretensions? I'm getting a bit of connectivity fatigue, I think. My website hasn't been updated for ages, nor my Myspace, and this blog seems far more reactive of late than it was ever intended to be; just "I read this in the Guardian" type stuff, which wasn't the intention at all. I've not found time to complete a couple of print things I was working on, and I think given this, I'll probably need to do a bit of streamlining shortly, else I'm never going to get anything done. I've been writing/recording a few new songs, mainly getting to grips with a new piece of recording equipment, so that's a project with a long gestation period as well. I realise I've not sent much of anything off to much of anywhere recently, nor - to be fair - read many of the new magazines that have come out recently. But then I do have quite a busy day job, so its probably not surprising. This week I worked 3 evenings, giving a couple of presentations about "what makes a good (and bad) website", and that means its been a weekend of just catching up on things - though taking Friday off - I did manage to move a few things along. I've a story that might fit into Transmission magazine's "survival" theme, though it seems its another magazine where my stories don't quite fit, in general. It's like this piece on "the offbeat generation" - it should be my natural home, but I don't think it will be, anymore than in the People's Friend. Times like this of course that you start thinking about starting a magazine, but I've been there, done that. All musings, really, nothing concrete.

Reformation Post TLC - the Fall Return

I've been listening to new music this week. The new Bloc Party album "A Weekend in the City" is very different than its debut, its full of epic choruses and shimmering musicianship, rather than the edginess of old. In about 1984-5, alot of the post-punk bands, on their 3rd or 4th album, developing a new level of sophistication, went down this route. It reminds me a little of latterday Chameleons, or those Liverpool bands like the Pale Fountains and the Icicle Works. Rousing choruses, like the last Doves album, but a little samey in that epic grandeur. It always has the possibility of falling into Meat Loaf/Queen territory, which probably won't harm its sales any, but the lack of edginess is a bit disappointing to me, since Bloc Party were the edgiest of that group of new bands that came out about 2 or 3 years ago - and once you lose your edges, as the stone once said, you can't get them back. The Klaxons album is more fun, already a virtual Greatest Hits, and kind-of nostalgic of those bands like Carter USM, Beloved etc. who did similar pop-dance albums back in the day. New rave, same as the old rave. It's took 3 listens to begin to appreciate the new Fall album, Reformation Post TLC. I think the opening 3 tracks are probably as good an album opening as the Fall have ever done. The sound is bass heavy, uber-metal, kind of like Black Sabbath's "War Pigs" stripped of the bombast. Not for the first time, I wonder, how on earth did anyone ever think the Fall were/are a "punk" band? There are several Fall sounds of course, not just the bass-heavy driving art rock of the title track. Merle Haggard's "White Line Fever" is a nice addition to Mark E. Smith's country rock e.p. for instance. "My Door is Never" (open), is a great piece of bile, whilst "Coach and Horses" is as wistful as "Bill is Dead." Who knows what to make of Eleni's sung "The Wright Stuff", we're not in the land of "O Brother" here. The album could have ended on "Scenario" and you'd have a great tight Fall album reminiscent of "This Nation's Saving Grace", but of course that doesn't happen. The electronic mish-mashes that have accompanied the band intermittently over the years surface towards the end of the disc. The epic repetition of "Systematic Abuse" recalls nothing other than "Repetition" itself from their debut album, "Live at the Witch Trials". I've always felt Smith hates the compact disc, and its like the music towards the latter part of Reformation Post TLC is trying to escape from the limitations, fighting digitally with the medium that carries it.Or maybe that's just me. The new band are good musicians, but not great, and the production is a little deadened throughout. I found both "The Real New Fall LP" and "Fall Heads Roll" excellent song collections, whose best tracks would pepper any future Fall compilation, but I didn't listen to them all that much. It will take me more than 3 listens to appreciate the new album, and having only heard a couple of the songs live, and without the familiarity of Fall sessions, outtakes, singles etc, the new Fall album may well be their freshest in a decade.

The Weak End

Ah, it's after 9.00 in the evening on a Sunday. Where did the weekend go? And moreover why aren't I watching "24"? I can't cope to be honest - not on a Sunday, when I've got to get read for work, and busy, busy week, giving presentations and other stuff. Jack Bauer will have to wait until I can cope with this fictional terror (as opposed to the others sorts - Bird Flu! Iraq's Civil War!). And I'm in the middle of a few things as well. Its took all weekend to get to a position where I'm ready to have a weekend, to be honest. Managed to write a little poem yesterday, but "little" is the word. I've been reading a bit as well, but not so far into a book that its likely I'll finish it, but we'll see. I'll mention it when I get a bit further. I'm playing catch up with all the music I've got downloaded etc. and rather than download any more its got me going back to my records, and - in between times - digitising them. I've been listening to some classic Prince, which is bloody great. Do people talk about Prince or listen to him anymore? I'm not sure. I guess the sound of the records is a bit eighties - all that synthetic drums, and high pitched squeaky keyboards, but no more than people still rip off. All of his arguing with the record companies etc. means that he's never been reissued/repackaged except in Greatest Hits form. There must be a 20CD boxset in there somewhere! Perhaps I'll wait. I've been trying to write something vaguely meaningful - or do something vaguely meaningful - about Manchester's getting the "super casino" licence. This article from Victoria Coren in the Observer is good at unpicking the arguments, and adds that "the super-casino will regenerate Manchester like the Luftwaffe regenerated Coventry." It's W.H. Auden's 100th anniversary, and the papers have got quite a few retrospectives, which like all such things, takes you back to the poems. Steven Waling wrote recently that he didn't like Auden, and I think part of the problem is that Auden suffers from having a digestible "selected", the existing ones are too partial or two worthy. Are you listening Faber? (Probably not.)

No time to blog

I've had no time to blog, though not for the creative reasons of Fiction Bitch more just because I've had a full on week at work. Last weekend's London trip was supposed to bookended by a couple of duvet days, but I was just too busy. Faced with a packed schedule one relaxes alcoholically I'm afraid, so things have also been a bit hazy, and I've had the strangest dreams. The night before last I passed John Ashbery on the stairs as I went to attend a university seminar in what looked like a greenhouse or roof garden. It was definitely him! How strange... though perhaps the arrival of one of my missing Ashbery's - "Chinese Whispers" - was the cause. When I was in London, my friend Adrian Cross told me he was reading on Resonance FM, London's art radio station. He was on Wendy Jones' monday afternoon show, "interesting conversations" though I don't think its archived. The Marvin Suicide show is a bit of a find, since it trawls the web for interesting free music so that you don't have to! Somehow this led me to Escape Pod, a sci-fi podcast site, and - and this is a real recommendation - Radio Radio, the online archive of an art project that was in Manchester a few years back. I just now need to find the time to listen to the whole of Victor Mount's wondrous "Disco of the Spoken Word" - an extract of which was on the CD.

Room to Live (Remainder by Tom McCarthy)

I've finally got round to reading the much lauded "Remainder" by Tom McCarthy, (Alma Books). After an accident, its narrator wins 8 and a half million pounds compensation; yet this narrow premise is really just a jumping off point for what comes next. The book is one packed with detail, often mundane, as we see the recreation of episode upon episode. In many ways, the book could have been called Deja Vu, since its this physical recreation of past (and not so past) scenes that creates the narrative. I had my own sense of deja vu, in parts, since its set in almost the exact same locale, Brixton, as my London novel, and this mundane sense of place gives an extra dimension to what is otherwise in every sense rootless. You always got the sense that the existential writings of Beckett, Camus and others was at least partly a response to the diaspora of post-war Europe, where everything from country borders to national identity had been ripped up - it seems that a new generation of writers (McCarthy is under 40), are faced with a world that is so unknowable, that the fictional response to it can only be through this kind of fascinated ennui. Whereas McEwan and Amis might use their London backdrops as credible settings for high drama, McCarthy is surely writing a more grounded and at the same time a more elevated kind of fiction. The writing is both taut, and unshowy, and it will be interesting to see if that "style" is just that of his coma-victim narrator or a constant for him. The flat, plainness will appeal to fans of Magnus Mills (of which I'm one), almost obsessively non-showy writing, yet you get the sense that McCarthy is holding in or holding back. When he releases his "bombs" they are never predictable even if you have half guessed what is coming. I read the book slowly, since I think the slow build up of non-events can be a little difficult to digest, even boring, and it might be this "ennui" rather than the forward tension of the latter quarter of the novel which kept it away from the prizes - yet its far better at doing this than Ishiguro's misfiring "Never Let you go." There's a modernity to the cultural references that is both thrillingly now, and, a bit like Mills, slightly off centre. You kind of think that McCarthy might be using "remembered" experiences rather than anything more real. The Dogstar, a Brixton institution; Psion organisers; "History Repeating" by the Propellorheads, speak of a gestation period that goes back to the last century - and, indeed the dot.com crash post-millennium also is an important plot point, that is there from the moment the narrator puts his money in the speculative area of "technology" shares. Precedents for the book must include John Fowles' iconic "The Collector" where a similarly ordinary man comes into money and uses it for less than orthodox purpose, or the re-staged car crashes of Ballard's "Crash". Here, as in "The Collector", we are drawn in by our unreliable narrator. He prods us - we like him - his fictional precedents will go back as far as Knut Hamsun's early modernist classic "Hunger". Yet, the subject matter here is far from any "brutalist" or "new puritan" manifesto. The things that our narrator wants are the stuff of reality tv shows; of "through the keyhole"; of "the Truman show". It is almost all men who have praised this novel, and I can see why in some way. The novel is about an extreme form of Obesessive Compulsiveness. There is a short ride from the narrator's obsessive recreations to the listmaking tendency of a certain kind of male; or even all the way back to the mad wall-hangings of John Nash in "A Brilliant Mind." At some point, he complains about how all his actions - even those before the accident - seem inauthentic or learnt. I don't think many women would recognise that awkwardness, but it seems almost endemic in the modern male psyche. The female characters are nearly non-existent, useless cutouts, there for only formulaic purpose. It is the men - the old friend who thinks he should spend his money on hookers; the various faceless professionals - lawyer, broker, logistics specialist, doctor, bankrobber - he calls in at various points, who are complicit in the "game" that he is involved in. Here it almost fits into that "greed literature" genre that gave us "Money" and "Bonfire of the Vanities", but it seems to only do this in fits and starts. We are in a recognisable world, which is rendered ever more mundanely, but in doing so becomes a more frightening plot. He is not creating Frankenstein's monster so much as Gatsby recreation of a dream. I'm reminded of when Gatsby's parties end, when the house is no longer anything other than an empty stage where these things were once put on. Inevitably, the book gets darker; it would not survive its own ennui, if McCarthy wasn't willing to draw us further in. Yet he does not seem particularly interested in a logically drawing back into his characters' past; more in an exploration of what horrors we are capable of when so single-mindedly following a pyrrhic objective. Like Saramago's wonderful "Blindness", allegory can only go so far; "Remainder" has to survive according to its own internal logic. That it does this, is its triumph. I'm not sure whether it has the wider canvas required to be a masterpiece; but as a first novel of a driven, if circumscribed, ambition, it succeeds admirably.

I read it bookending a weekend in London, where, despite now having an Oyster card, the travel still takes its toll. Everywhere was so busy! I remember a few years ago how empty London sometimes seemed in January, but not any more it seemed. My once favoured bookshop, in Balham, was overpriced and understocked - I fear for its health - and fear that the internet may have added interesting secondhand bookshops to its list of approved kills. Never mind; its always a little reassuring to know that London's both still there, and, at the same time, so impossible (house prices, the tube, the tired faces).

Time Enough at Last

Dear Guardian readers, I occasionally buy the Times, so that you don't have to. Only joking, but their books section is often far better than the Julian Barnes Supplement that is the Guardian's. Where do I start? A feature on the Paris Review interviews, which Canongate, obviously anticipating my birthday, is making available in book form. Then, Elaine Feinstein's article on the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of my favourite poets, Louis Macneice. My favourite poem is "Meeting Point" from 1939, effortless in its language, beautifully lyrical, both solemn and serene. He died a few months after Sylvia Plath, but is lodged in the memory as a "thirties poet." Time enough at last, to uncouple him from that and read him for himself. Faber have got a new collected out now, and its already in my shopping basket. All this, and a poem from Margaret Atwood which will be of immense help, I would think, to anyone seeing an aged loved one fade away. There was also an article, elsewhere in yesterday's paper about Mark E. Smith of the Fall, confirming yesterday's post of it being "the year of the Fall." I went to see "The Last King of Scotland" last night, about Idi Amin, and its a powerful, intense movie, that only occasionally falls into cliche. What it lacks in visual literacy, it makes up for, as you might expect from Kevin "Touching the Void" Macdonald, is a ratcheting up of the tension, as sat inside the court of Amin, we get the glimpses of a regime turning from popular acclaim to terror, in small glimpses, whilst always being equally affronted/charmed by Forrest Whittaker's brilliant portrayal of the dictator.

Hit the North

Not sure if the Fall have ever written a boxing song to go along with their various football ones, but Manchester's favourite son, Ricky Hatton, fights in Las Vegas for the first time tonight against the Colombian Juan Urango. It's a long way from Tameside to Vegas, yet one can only hope that Hatton's preparation is good enough to win this one. Boxing has long lost its lustre, with too many titles, too much politics, but it remains essentially the same sport as it's always been, whatever the showbiz vagaries that surrounded it. I saw Hatton at the M.E.N. a few years ago and it was a very knowledgeable crowd, all dressed up to nines, like a convention of gangsters and their molls. The theatrics of the M.E.N. is taken straight from Vegas, of course, so I think Hatton will feel at home, though when he comes out to "Blue Moon" will the Americans realise its for his beloved Manchester City? In the week that a 60 year old Sylvester Stallone is re-selling his imaginary Rocky franchise one more time, its worth remembering that a real fight is going on across the ocean.

Perverted by Language

Odd to think that 2007 could be the year of "The Fall." Last year was bereft of new Fall product, though the band changed again and again, and live gigs showed a wealth of new material. The lack of an equivalent of the "Peel Sessions" has meant that new material doesn't get roadtested on the radio like it did. Despite Myspace and XFM and 6Music, its fair to say that we've not really replaced John Peel's show. In fact, like literature, music seems to be a well-trodden path these days, where even surprising stuff is telegraphed well in advance. But the literary and music worlds collide, with a book of stories inspired by the Fall and Mark E. Smith's biography. I'm disappointed that its called "Renegade: the Gospel According to Mark E. Smith". Surely it should be "How I wrote Elastic Man?" for real? Some readers of this blog will be Fall fans no doubt, but others will probably have never heard a single song. A new album, the wonderfully titled Reformation Post TLC, is out in February and intrigued readers could do worse than spending their 40 Free downloads at eMusic on their extensive Fall collection - 458489 - the A sides, and "Palace of Swords Reversed" would be 2 good places to start, and "Extricate" is perhaps there most diverse and commercial album.

Racism Returns

(Courtesy of the Lancashire Telegraph)

THE chief executive of an agency charged with regenerating the North West has admitted sending a racist joke in a text message.

Steven Broomhead, who heads the North West Development Agency, apologised after it emerged he had sent a joke about a Pakistani shopkeeper via text.

He said: "I received an inappropriate text message to my mobile.

"Without thinking, I forwarded the message on to the mobile phone of an individual outside the NWDA.

"Forwarding this message was an error of judgment on my part and is something that I deeply regret.

"It was inappropriate and thoughtless and does not reflect my personal opinions in any way.
Advertisement continued...

"There was no intention on my part to cause offence and I would like to apologise unreservedly."

The NWDA is responsible for supporting businesses, encouraging investment, lobbying for better infastructure and promoting the region's quality of life.

ENDS HERE

Many Local Government employees have been sacked or reprimanded for similar offences, so I do hope that the investigation comes down heavy on Mr. Broomhead. Ignorance, in this instance, is no excuse; particularly given the furore this week over racism on Big Brother. It is worth considering that Mr. Broomhead is on a salary of over £170,000. I like that "Without thinking, I forwarded a message...." I received loads of text messages over Christmas asking me to "forward" them and "not break the chain". It is impossible to "forward" a message "without thinking" after all you have to first of all work out who you are going to forward it to.

A Lot of Wind

I'm sitting there watching the BBC news, wondering why it's going on about severe weather throughout the country when it seems quite a nice morning here, and then whoosh!, here it comes. Its like its just arrived, on cue with the TV broadcast. For not the first time this week, I've got a lot of rushing around to do, lets just hope I'm rushing in the right direction.

As comebacks go...

The new issue of The Rialto popped through my letterbox this morning, and it includes a short poem of mine, "Because the Beach Needs Sweeping." I had a couple of poems in this magazine about 5 years ago, and they were strange, experimental one-offs, so it's nice that I've had a lyric poem published by them! The editor, Michael Mackmin, wonders why established poets don't send poems to magazines that often - unlike the American ones - unless they have a book coming out. Its a good point, really. I'm not likely to buy the books on the T.S. Eliot shortlist without reading a poem or two from them first. Seamus Heaney won that prize, for "District and Circle." This poem doesn't really make me want to read it anymore than his other books; I just read nostalgia and violence in his poems, more often than not, and neither are my favourite subjects. Mackmin also makes the point that he'd like more political poems - or more poets engaging politically. Its sometimes part of what I do, but I don't think it ever follows immediately from an event. "Was the sequence unknown?" from my last pamphlet, "The Question", was a direct response to the London bombing in both when I wrote it, and its subject, but other poems were more obliquely political.

So that's why I'm poor

I've for a long time wondered how inflation can be so low, when prices seem to be going up. Yes, my CDs and books get cheaper (but only when I buy them secondhand or from a discounter - just look at the RRP of an average novel that's NOT in the 2-for-1), but since most of my income goes on must-haves, (fuel, transport, food), and would-miss (wine, meals, cinema), its not surprising that I've consistently had a personal inflation rate of 2 per cent above the national. Consumer goods, it seems, feature very low in my life, despite the aforementioned books and CDs, and as for air flights, holidays etc. hmmm, chance would be a fine thing.

The red line is me; the green line is inflation. www.statistics.gov.uk is where you need to look, check the button on the right hand side of the page.

Alice as Alice saw it...

Wow is the only word to describe the British Library's pageturning facsimiles. I've been looking at William Blake's notebook, and Lewis Carroll's original hand-written/hand-drawn Alice. I've been always a wee bit sceptical of e-Books and the like, but here, for once, is something where the web can genuinely give us an experience, whether at home or in a museum, that wasn't available before. I always love seeing the "behind glass" orginal manuscripts in places like the Haworth parsonage etc. but obviously you never get to feel the book or even to really gaze at what they contain. This is more than "scholarship" - it seems to allow a connection with the very heart of the original writer. More Please!

Brave Writers

I am heartened that there seems to be, finally, a little literary rumbling of the complacency of so much published fiction. Here is Rod Liddle, in the Sunday Times, not, admittedly, a journalist whose opinion counts for much, asking "has fiction lost its power?" - that had literature had "started being like every other form of mass entertainment, aiming wide and broad, hoping to alienate nobody." In yesterday's Guardian, Zadie Smith was making a similar point; another writer has emailed her in response to "how would you define literary failure?" as being "so eager to please." It would be interesting to see how Smith sees her own work there - my criticism of "On Beauty" was related very much to this; or at least Smith's obvious love of the cloistered privilege of top-end universities, and the fact that for the middle classes, even failure is only relative, it allows them to return to their pathway, perhaps a little wiser. Expanding on this lack of "bravery" - and I guess its publishers and audiences as well as writers who can create a culture of temerity - it's surely what characterised so much of the post-war British novel. Characters started at a certain point - by the end of the novel they had returned back there - or the status quo had been restored. There is no looking into the abyss; none of the total failure of the social system to look after them that you find in, say, "Mill on the Floss" when the Tulliver's court case is lost. Circularity - implicit in "On Beauty" (and its model "Howard's End") is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does lead to some complacency. Things have happened; but the status quo is returned to. You find it in Kingsley Amis; in Iris Murdoch; rarely, in Doris Lessing or Martin Amis. Of course, it can be as powerful as novelstic tool as any other - a troubled marriage at the start of the novel might be the status quo that is returned to - in itself a knowing tragedy. Liddle is also talking about brave writing; where style as well as content is vital to making a novel matter as more than entertainment. I've long been of the view that a certain kind of "talking point" novel - can be little more than a drama-documentary; not leaving a psychological scar or an emotional revealing. The difficulty, of course, is that if everyone's looking for a "happy ending" (and even in the saddest novel, that "happy ending" can simply be a return to the status quo, after the devastation has taken place), then that will be more what gets written, what gets published. Is it just me, or is there far more complacency in the domestic horror of McEwan's "Saturday" than in "Enduring Love" or "The Innocent", where actions most definitely had costs - not for the peripheral characters - but for the mains?

Yee-Haw, a bit of a Round-up

A friend has invited me over to Sheffield to see an intriguing sounding play, "Talking to Space Hoppers." Any other week I'd have happily gone - I've only been to Sheffield twice in my life, and yet its not far by train. Interesting that the unknown (to me at least) poet John Haynes has won the Costa (nee Whitbread) poetry prize for his book "Letters to Patience." Like David Harsent's "Legion" and Alice Oswald's "Dart", these "thematic" books of poetry have really taken all the prizes in the last few years, and yet this development has - to my mind - never really been mentioned. All 3 poets have simply come up with a book that has overturned more favoured names - and it does make me wonder whether the "beauty contest" of contemporary poetry ever really knows what its doing? Perhaps the book length poem, presumed dead since "The Dynasts", has made a quiet recovery? Writing poetry can be hard, and hard-fought (Haynes' book took him 13 years). We tried to find room for longer poems in "Lamport Court," and a new issue, the 2nd solely edited by Neil Campbell, is out shortly. His own first book - a short story collection - follows in March. Magazines remain the lifeblood of a literary scene and 2nd issues should be more celebrated than 1st issues (they're usually far better as well, casting their net further), so I'm sure there will be plenty of people at Manchester Central Library on Friday for the new issue of "Libertine Magazine." In the non-literary world people have been literally falling over in amazement at the launch of Apple's new iPhone. Didn't Speak and Spell used to make something that looked a bit similar?

Ziggy is Sixty

Of all the draw-droppingly unbelievable birthdays, surely David Bowie being 60 is the most astonishing? He remains one of the critical influences on my life. I probably first heard him when "Space Oddity" was unexpectedly reissued to become a number one in 1975. I remember getting "The very best of Bowie" (probably the worst of a whole range of compilations he's released over the years) when I was about 13 or 14, and that probably presaged the amazement of hearing (and seeing the video for) "Ashes to Ashes." Already past his prime - its parent album, "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)" is generally seen as the last great album of a run that goes back to his second "The Man Who Sold the World" a decade earlier - I was turned into a Bowie fan more by the prescience of RCA records to cheaply re-sell his back catalogue, at £2.99 each, so that every few weeks I'd add "Low", "Hunky Dory" or "Ziggy Stardust" to my collection. A good time to catch up with Bowie, if not that great a time to be a manic fan (oddities like "Alabama Song", his debatable movie career), I know I'd heard Bauhaus's note perfect version of "Ziggy Stardust" before I'd heard Bowie's. I've therefore got quite a skewed view of his back catalogue - I heard things in the wrong order, and some not till years later. Therefore I'm not a particular fan of "Young Americans" "Aladdin Sane" or "Lodger", since they seemed weak compared with "Station to Station", "Diamond Dogs" and "Low" respectively.

"Let's Dance", of course, was his biggest success - the title track following "Ashes to Ashes" and his Queen collaboration "Under Pressure" to number one - yet outside the singles I've probably not played it for a decade. After that, it was a Bowie that had, after being the ultimate outsider artist (albeit a massive selling one), embraced the mainstream. "Blue Jean", off "Tonight" was probably his last truly great single for a decade or so. Yet every album - even the "Tin Machine" ones - offered hope of a return to form. It's strange, how, in retrospect, the partial renaissance - perhaps since "Black Tie, White Noise" onwards - has made his eighties "blip" seem just that. The musician who'd experimented with electronics, plastic soul and artifice in the 70s was unable to survive the artifice, plastic soul and electronics of the 80s. Somewhere, sometime I've a massive essay unfinished on Bowie - why he means so much to so many, yet is still mistrusted by others. I've seen him twice - both in massive venues and in the last decade - and I'm not sure that I quite believed it was him. I prefer him as the alien he played in the masterful "The Man Who Fell to Earth." Yet, as rock stars go, he's never stopped being what rock stars should be... interesting. I realised, that with his recent heart problem, the gap since "Heathen" is one of the longest in his career. Bowie the businessman is always problematic - Bowie.net, Bowie bonds, endless, endless reissues and greatest hits, which have never quite tempted me to replace my RCA £2.99ers.

A great singer, but a poor interpreter (except where the songs are obscure - like his Pixies and Pop covers); and almost uninterpretable himself. Considering how great the songs often are, they generally defy anyone to do another version (I like the Bauhaus cover, Lulu's "The Man Who Sold the world" and Mott the Hoople's "All the Young Dudes" but that's about it - but have a look here!); and what is often forgotten in the torrent of "Best ofs" and the ubiquitous footage of "Changes" or "Starman", is how rich that back catalogue is. "Quicksand" from "Hunky Dory", "Five Years" from "Ziggy Stardust", "Be My Wife" from "Low" and "Teenage Wildlife" from "Scary Monsters" would all squeeze into my "best of." He's experimented with different bands; different styles; but its only music that aspires to be glamorous - and yes, alien - that has really worked for him. Faced with an r&b, folk or pop backing, his vocal mannerisms sit awkwardly. It is the driving, drama of his glam rock backing; or the glacial avant gardeism of Eno that suits him best. His supporting of those keystones of the alternative - the Velvets, Iggy in particular - would deserve praise whatever else he's done. I hope there's many more albums, however, bad, misconceived, odd or inspirational (on every record there's been a track or two that deserves the latter epithet, "Never Let Me Down" and "Tin Machine II" apart!). For me, he's not the bisexual icon that appealed to Jake Arnott or Anthony and the Johnsons, nor is he the global rock star of "Live Aid" and "Dancing in the Streets", or the elder statesman of "mature" Q awards and live webcasts. Rather, he's the avant garde-ner extraordinary, tending that garden even when at its most barren - making a strangely powerful alchemy of rock and roll, pop, experiment and theatre work time and again.

Happy Birthday, Ziggy.

Going Back

I've been leafing through a few old books; anthologies and the like - you don't always read them in full when they come out. Conjunctions is one of my favourite magazines, though its issues are often the size of encyclopedias. Its 25th anniversary issue is just out, but before ordering it, I decided to have a re-read of a couple of issues that it published a few years ago, collecting together a snapshot of current American poetry in one and fiction in another. I say a snapshot, but Conjunctions, as lot of the better magazines with a web presence are, is about the American avant garde. Interesting that a couple of British writers, Jim Crace and Will Self, make the 25th anniversary edition. Anyway, re-reading their "American poetry: state of the art" collection from a few years ago I came across a brilliant poet I'd not read before, C.D. Wright. It appears she's never been published in England, but the prose poems I read - from "One Big Self" a collaboration with a photographer about Louisana prisoners - were rich in language, invention and emotion. She's got a "new and selected" "Steal Away", so I'll hopefully find out more. Going back to the point I made a few posts ago, about the difficulty of keeping up with American poetry, Conjunctions is one way.

Delays

I'm still delaying my new poetry pamphlet, "Loosely", from seeing light o' day. A number of the poems needs tweaks, small changes. I'm shedding commas, semi colons and hyphens - I must have been given a job-lot in the summer when I wrote most of these poems. I'm having to replace "reflect in a window" with "reflected in a window" and I don't like either. I'm excising prose-words like "that" and "only". Stripping the engine, putting it back in the poem. It will purr better. Which reminds me, suddenly, of a pseudo-poem (actually a "chapter" of my 250 chapter experimental novel).

WAX CAT

I have a wax cat, she purrs like a candle.


I still like that one. Delays are extending to my latest short story, which needs a clear head (I'm not talking alcohol here, I'm talking all the other detritus) to complete. I'm a little absent at the moment (not from my blog, here I seem very present), waiting for something to happen. I'm like one of the weevil's in Torchwood. They sense something... (Torchwood's been a pleasure, guilty or not, and despite some episodes not cutting it. It's interesting as well to work out what they've ripped off. There's a little of "Don't Look Now" in the last episode of the first series. Oh, and Jack "came out", I guess, though him being gay seems somewhat irrelevant when HE CAN'T BE KILLED.)

See, I can do paragraphs? All that white space. Might have to try a poem...

***
In other news, just read about this intriguing collaboration between Scottish musicians and poets/novelists.
Idlewild and Edwin Morgan, now there's a thought.

Stop, already

I'm getting distinctly tired of "guilty pleasures" and now, "guilty reads." Not sure that Stephen King should be anyone's guilty read. If you like someone, stand up for their writing/music, and if you think they're not that great a writer/singer etc. don't be embarassed to admit it. Stephen King's always been a great writer - probably one of the best writers about childhood in the last thirty years or so, as readers of "Firestarter", "Carrie", "The Body" (made into the film "Stand by Me") and "It" can attest. I've not read any for a while - but seem to recall either "The Dark Half" or "Pet Semetary" as my favourites. I also like "Bridges of Madison County," so sue me - I think its structurally clever, and I like its sentimentality and its morality. I know - as surely everyone does - that we're no better judge today of what contemporary books will stand the test of time than anyone in the past. From Shakespeare to Donne, from "Wuthering Heights" to "The Great Gatsby", the current judgement is more often flawed. I've heard so many people tell me that "Da Vinci Code" is badly written (even people who wouldn't notice such a thing) that I've no desire to read it; but so's "Moo" by Jane Smiley, "Larry's Party" by Carol Shields, and "Anil's Ghost" by Michael Ondaatje; exceptionally terrible novels all. Remember, when Oasis's "(What's the story) Morning Glory" came out, dumb critics preferred Blur's "The Great Escape." Stick by your guns; like what you like; defend your choices; and don't ever call them guilty ones.

That was This Life

Just watched the 10 year reunion episode of "This Life." So, don't read on if you've videod it, or watching it on play-again or are going to bit torrent it from somewhere. Yes, "This life - ten years on" was probably the most hypertextual piece of television we've seen since Dennis Potter's swansong pieces appeared simultaneously on the Beeb and Channel 4. The soundtrack was conveniently loaded into Eg's iPod, so we got Everything but the Girl and Massive Attack for the quiet bits, and Manic Street Preachers "Design for Life" for when they were dancing. Music was always an important part of this life, mainly because it was both dashed off (i.e. it was playing incidentally at all moments) and candid (yes, they knew what they were doing.) In a sense it was a rare occasion when tele gets it right - rather than retrospectively adding window dressing (like the tele version of "The Line of Beauty.") Eg, much liked by most of my female friends, remains the most annoying man in television history - soppy, useless, like a pet dog that's none too bright - and he's STILL like that. Only thing is, he's written a bestselling novel about, yes, "This life" the first time round. God, this gets complex. Originally conceived by Amy Jenkins, about her own housesharing experience, is Eg Amy then? And what happened to Amy after that much hyped first bestseller? Never mind, everyone admits the series got better when other writers got involved, which always seemed a little unfair (and I liked the first series alot, just took everyone else a time to get back into it.) A shame that Ramon Tikaram never made the cut (he's the excuse for the get together) but he's tried to be a serious actor ever since and maybe's glad of the let off. This life was always less comfortable when it had characters outside of the main set - and so it is here, where Miles' Vietnamese bride, and Claire, the young northern film maker, are dismissed as soon as they possibly can. The reunion show was ace - because it concentrated on the verbal sparring between the 5 remaining characters. Millie, never the least bit sexy in the original, looked great, whilst Anna was looking a little worse for wear - though not as bad as Miles' long backpackers hair. (And this guy was supposed to be running a chain of hotels?) They were always a bit posh the people in This Life, and in the reunion the Beeb and the writers can't resist a bit of the Richard Curtis treatment. And its not a bad idea - arriving at the hotel, sorry, Miles' palatial home - they're like an Agatha Christie dinner party, and we're left waiting for the first body to turn up. And the body here, of course, is the past. Like a 5-person marriage, what was always so great about the show is how they're all best friends who bring out the very worst in each other. Eg gets turned into a child by sensible Millie (and she really likes that as well - smiling when her real child beats her with a toy teddy to wake her up, when Eg's been up and doing childcare for all of 5 seconds) - the book, remember, was always a bit of a laugh for him, a kind of "I'm not working, I'm an author" schtick that has never worked that well for me! Anna hates Millie's conformity but really wishes she had a proper boyfriend/baby/house etc. whilst Millie would like to be a bit more devilish. Anna's devilishness was always a little overplayed of course - she's a topdog lawyer, as always, and still smokes like a chimney. (Good job they didn't do it next year.) Whilst Warren was always the bit of grease between the other relationships, helping them all rub along together - glad to not be worrying about himself for once. In one of many clever little touches, he's replaced his old therapy sessions with, yes, being a life coach. Though its always been touch and go whether him or Little Britain's Dafydd, the only other Welsh gay in the village, perhaps?, was the least self aware. I guess, the only thing wrong with the show was the speed at which it zoomed through things - like a Noel Coward on steroids (and Amy's first novel was a Coward-filch if I remember rightly). So a good piece of nostalgia for once, and my head's spinning like the tracks on an iPod keeping up with all the subtexts, which is as it should be. Don't know where you'd come back from here? After all, getting back together, like any old group of friends, they eventually fall back to what they were - Milly girly, Eg daft, Miles still trying not to turn into his dad, Warren coming to terms with whatever he needs to come to terms with and Anna being Anna. I can see them again in another decade - yet it would be like being in aspic, their characters unchanging, just life changing around them. If anything they'd all be a bit young to be going all middle aged on us. I wrote my own state-of-the-nineties novel about my year in London in 1996-7, and yet by moving out of there, I missed out on the prosperity of the Blair years. There's a few friends, older than that lot, who'd kind of fit the cliches, but it probably takes a bit longer, and then again, quite a few of them have either not yet made it (still waiting, like Anna, for the house, the partner, the baby...) or simply fled the city for the countryside. As the Manic Street Preachers would have it, "We don't talk about love, we only want to get drunk." That song, of course, could even make the charts next week - since for the first time - ALL downloads will count, they don't need a physical reissue accompanying the song. So, anyone plugging in their iPod tonight for a bit of nostalgia might just be tempted to flash 79p!

New Year

If my blog could have new year's resolutions it would probably be to have a makeover - a new template is probably due, or even a move to Wordpress, we'll see if it finds the time. The post-Xmas period has seen me out late 4 nights in a row. Seeing the Runaways meets AC/DC of Crewe based the Tommys at Night and Day made me feel distinctly old. I'd say they're going to be massive, they're ridiculously good at their instruments, but the music's a bit on the heavy side for the charts. I bumped into my friend who runs the occasional arts and music night, Beat Your Art Out, their next one is in Hebden Bridge of all places. That night saw us come foul of the lack of 24 hour drinking in Manchester, Via Fossa closing at 1.00 and us having to gamely go to the place of no return (the New Union.) The village doesn't change, Italo-house classic "Keep Warm" by Armando was playing as we left Via Fossa. Tune! The following day saw us end up in Common in the Northern Quarter, where I can definitely say that "New Rave" is real and not just a media invention. Though nobody was dancing cos its a bar! Didn't stop them when they put Michael Jackson's "Beat it" on. A friend's birthday the day-before NYE, and then a pleasant meal for New Year itself where we got all competitive with the 1996 "Pub Quiz Book" and the game Taboo. (We were rubbish.) Somehow all these hangovers have helped a little with my creativity: namely I wrote a first draft of a new story that I'm wildly excited about. Before I return to work tomorrow I've been doing a bit of "housekeeping" finding old stories I wrote pre-computer days, which I really should type in one of these days. I even found my "author" photograph that I got done for City Life's Manchester Stories back in the day; good job really, since the publishers lost it as well. Realise I've been writing pretty seriously for about 20 years now - which seems a long, long time; but also, weirdly, could just seem like an apprenticeship. I've been looking through the ragged entrails of my past writings, finding connections, repeated motifs, failed and successful attempts at the same thing. Mostly, remarkably, there's some consistency. Unlike my record collection which flies all over the place. I picked up a rare Captain Beefheart yesterday, but the record player is attached to the computer as I dither about digitising stuff, so haven't listened to it yet. The Waterstones gift vouchers my sister gave me have already been spent: Jeffrey Wainwright's "Poetry: the basics" is something I've been meaning to get for ages, I've never had a poetry lesson/class in my life, and so when people talk about ceasuras and sestinas and the like, I go all schtum. Its a joy to read, and you'll come away from it knowing much more than you did before. Very catholic choice of poets he chooses from as well. That, and Tom McCarthy's heavily recommended "Remainder" should keep me going well into January. I was looking for a decent anthology of contemporary (even post-60s) American poetry and it doesn't seem that one exists. There's a few wide surveys of the more avant garde end of things, which stretch into the present day, but as far as I can see there's no decent "primer" for contemporary American poetry, made available for British readers. It makes you wonder what the Fabers, Carcanets etc. of the world are thinking of? And it may explain this essay in Poetry Review from John Burnside. In brief, Burnside finds himself in a conversation about the American poet Jorie Graham, and from this discovers that almost none of the UK poets at the event have read any contemporary American poetry, or like any of it. Even Ashbery was dismissed by this myopic crowd. I'm not a fan of Burnside's poetry, but this is a brave and important essay that should be a rallying cry. "You don't know what you're missing," he said to them, and he's right, but there's no easy way in to the contemporary American scene. I wish Burnside had named names, surely if that's their view they wouldn't be unhappy to make it publicly known? I think Fiona Sampson, the new editor of Poetry Review, should insist! Happy New Year.