Bloodied, Broken And Everything Else

There’s a scene in The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson where there is a large queue of customers, none of whom wish Barney to cut their hair, and they all sit and shake their heads as he desperately tries to get one of them to acquiesce. It’s a slight exaggeration of a scene I witnessed in my local barberhsop a long time ago.

In the middle of scene there is the following line: Beaten, but not yet bloodied, Barney nodded.

I noticed this yesterday whilst proof-reading. Beaten but not yet bloodied? What does that mean? That he’d had a heart attack but at least there was no blood? Obviously I’d meant to write bloodied but not yet beaten.

At first I presumed I’d copied it wrongly when I’d been transcribing the book into its current form. However, a quick check of the Piatkus edition showed that it’s been there all along. So I originally wrote the line in the summer of 1995, tucked away from the African heat in the air conditioned Arctic circle of our apartment on Boulevard de la Republique in Dakar. I read the book who knows how many times back then and never noticed. I re-wrote it a year later and never noticed. It was picked up for publication. The editor never noticed. The copy editor never noticed. The proof reader(s) never noticed. Maybe some readers noticed and thought, this guy’s an idiot... And then I converted the book back to its original state and didn’t notice. And now, on my fifth, and last, proof read, I finally noticed it.

In itself, it’s a point of little significance. The worrying thing is how many more there are out there. The Long Thomson of Barney Midnight, coming to a shop near you.

There was an item on the Yahoo news page the other day headlined, Man Reads All 59million Words Of Oxford English Dictionary. I stopped myself clicking on it. It’s the kind of story that you start reading, then halfway through you stop and think, I’m reading this... Without reading it I thought - because I was still thinking about it - that maybe there was some other remarkable feat attached to it, such as he did it underwater holding his breath the entire time, or he did it while sailing solo across the Atlantic in a sink. As headlines go it seems to be on a par with those little personal headlines that make up everyone’s life on a daily basis. Man Burns Toast. Man Goes Two Days Without Shouting At Kids. Man Falls Asleep Watching TV.

I finally cracked and read the story. It was a story about a guy who’d read the whole of the OED. The nub came at the end. He’d written a book about it... Man, 38, Reads Long Non-Narrative Book, Writes Own Book.

There’s the thing. It wasn’t actual news. It wasn’t a story about a guy who’d read the whole of the OED, had just finished it that day and wanted everyone to know. It was a story about a guy who’d written a book. Another ten seconds’ research revealed that the book had in fact first been published in July this year.

So why is it being presented as news in the second week in October? Why were some of the news stories - I ended up reading more than one - saying that he'd spent the last year reading it? The guy hadn’t just read the OED, he’d obviously read it long enough ago to write a book about it, get the book edited, copy edited, proof-read etc. (hopefully better than The Midnight of Long Barney Thomson), placed into the schedules, printed, distributed to bookbuyers and reviewers, published. The dude didn’t finish reading the OED this week.

The only answer is that this is how news works. Publicists write copy, they send it to news organisations, the news people pick stuff up and put it out as news because they’re so strapped for time that they can’t check for any actual stories, and before you know it, Bob’s your Builder.

Man Writes Blog About Man Writing Book About Reading The Whole of The OED.

1 of 800,000

I was discussing blogging with one of my ethnic Polish friends (EPF) - actually, I only have one EPF - and she suggested that I could write about Poland. During the course of the discussion, I realised that in many ways I'm not cut out for blogging. I don't want to give strong opinions, to try to provoke a reaction; I'm very wary about writing a blog on a subject about which someone out there is going to know more than me. I don't have the inner spunk to cope well with someone writing to tell me I'm an idiot. It wouldn't take many e-mails like that to have me retreating to a dark cave to hide for months amongst the troglodytes of pusillanimity.

(So, for example, when I wrote my blog about how the Israeli/Palestinian conflict could be solved if America gifted Israel a large part of Texas, so that Israel could move to North America, lock stock and religious artefact, freeing the land for the the rest of the Middle East to fight over, well, I just deleted it...)

So, I always end up writing about subjects that I'm guaranteed to know better than anyone. My kids, my books, the way I work, what kind of marmalade I had on my toast that morning. Writing with a giant safety net. (Which is probably pusillanimous in itself.) Someone can still write to tell me they think my blog is mince or that I'm a fat bastard or that I can't string two sentences together. But they can't say, no way did your kid say that, or Thick Sliced Olde English, pull the other one, chief!

So, for the moment, I will probably just stick to doing what I do. I'll write about Poland one day. One day in the near future. However, back on my home planet...

Spent yesterday morning working on a reading to put up on YouTube for Lost in Juarez. However, after a lot of fruitless tinkering at the Mac, I ditched it all. A few hours down the stank or all part of the process?

I first of all created a nice introduction for it using the start of Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues, the song where the Juarez lines comes from. Managed to fade the song out and blend in a suspenseful backing track, almost like you'd get in a movie. However, the next bit, the reading, was rubbish. And of course, I couldn't use Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues anyway, because I'd get sued. If anyone ever noticed it. But it would be pointless to do it of no one noticed it, and then costly if they did. So I ditched Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues and replaced it with the ring of an old-fashioned telephone, which then blended into a creepy, suspenseful backing track. It kind of worked, but not as well as Tom Thumb. But then the reading was still rubbish, so I ditched it all anyway.

If I'd used the actual Dylan line for the title, the book would have been called Lost In The Rain In Juarez, which isn't nearly so snappy. Have just listened to the Nina Simone version, and interestingly - (well, this is probably stretching the definition of interesting) - Nina doesn't mention the rain in Juarez, she just sings When you're lost in Juarez... and changes the phrasing so it fits.

I may have another go at the reading next week, but I feel that this was a small window to do it, before an avalanche of other things require attending to, so it probably won't happen.

Off to Krakow for a long weekend, to play the How Many Drunk Brits Can You See In The Old Town Square game.

That was sort of writing about Poland.

The Laws of Gravity

TPCKAM bought a magazine at the airport this week in case the chic-lit she'd taken to read on the plane was mince. She brought the magazine home last night. National Geographic Adventure. Tag-line: Dream it. Plan it. Do it.

There's an advert in the middle somewhere, a full page, at the centre of which is a photo of a mountain biker, at least thirty yards off the ground, obviously having just ridden off a mountain, with the sun setting behind him. The line at the top reads, The laws of gravity don't apply to euphoria.

Hmm, wonder what that could be an advert for. A bike? Too mundane. An adventure holiday? Not even close. Some illegal performance enhancing drug perhaps?

It's an advert for a biscuit. Well, an energy bar, but the effect is much the same. It is apparently, the energy bar nature intended. The energy bar nature intended has been registered, so you can't go using that phrase at home or you'll have an east coast lawyer on your tail.

The laws of gravity don't apply to euphoria. May be. But I bet they apply to energy bars.

Which brings me to The Final Cut. Started the long process of re-writing the book today. Didn't actually do any work on it, but I did download it onto my laptop, which will allow me to start it at some unspecified date in the very near future.

The story, first written as Limited Edition, is set amongst a firm of marketing executives in London, bright young things who come up with lines such as the laws of gravity don't apply to euphoria when they're talking about biscuits. At the start of every chapter there is a small piece of marketing copy for some imaginary product, which may or may nor be related to some product discussed in that chapter. Having read through these again, four years after I first wrote them, I'm kind of disappointed that they're not as funny as I thought they were in the first place. And certainly, there's nothing as stupid as the laws of gravity don't apply to euphoria when talking about a biscuit. I have some work to do.

Nevertheless, here's one that I still like:

Winnie The Pooh
Your kids have seen the films, they’ve watched the classic animated tv shows, they’ve watched the puppet tv shows, they’ve watched the computer generated tv shows, they’ve read the books, they’ve played with the soft toys, they’ve used the toothbrushes, they’ve worn the t-shirts and pyjamas and trousers, they’ve ruined your PC whilst using the CD-Roms, they’ve played with the gazillion or so cheap plastic toys, they’ve eaten the food, they’ve eaten off the plates, they’ve eaten with the cutlery. Now, Rolls Royce, in conjunction with the Disney Corporation, introduce the new range of Winnie The Pooh Heavy Engineering Equipment, including generators, diggers, plant machinery and power tools. Starting from the low low price of $17,000, Winnie The Pooh Heavy Engineering Equipment is all you’ll ever need around the building site.