Puns and Feathered Friends

I was tootling round the internet and stopped off at my old mate, Jane Finnis’s, blog where she (with a truly awful pun) was writing about blue tits eating caterpillars that munch their way through horse-chestnut leaves.  Here’s the link so you can see that somebody really does make worse puns than I do: http://www.janefinnis.com/

It’s interesting – or, okay, it might not be that interesting, but I’m going to talk about it anyway – why we groan loudly when puns are made.  After all, they’re fairly witty, aren’t they?  I think they’re a bit like the jokes in Christmas crackers.  Because they’re meant to be awful, everyone can join in. If Christmas dinner was actually a feast of wit and a flow of soul, reminiscent of an Eighteenth Century Salon or dinner with Oscar Wilde, it’d leave most of us looking and feeling like numptys, breeding resentment and discord instead of peace and good will.

It’s the same with puns.  They’re awful and they’re meant to be awful – even when they’re really good – so everyone can join in with the pun-fest.

One of my favourite puns though, is the pun that wasn’t.  Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, because it’s one of my favourite stories.

A pal of mine – let’s call her Ethel - was in hospital recovering from a mastectomy (admittedly this isn’t one of the most promising openings you’ve ever heard to a funny story!) when she was visited by her old friend, Yorkshire Sid.  Now both Ethel and Sid were very keen bird watchers, never happier when crouched beneath a rudely constructed heap of twigs with a pair of binoculars, watching Our Feathered Friends going about their everyday business. Sid was lamenting Ethel’s absence from the bird-watching fray.

“Eee, Ethel,” he said.  “I do hope as how you’re up and about and can come out with us again soon.  We’ve had some belting sightings.  We’ve had nuthatchs and finches and some lovely t-t-t-t (gulp) and other birds!”

Oddly Quiet

It was very, very quiet in the Gordon-Smith homestead last night.  Jenny was out at a party and Lucy’s gone to university.  Now don’t get me wrong;  I want her to go to uni, but it’s such a weird feeling to know that she’s not just out for the evening but actually living somewhere else.  The whole process is a bit weird. There are some sort of everyday-ish experiences that are well covered in fiction; meeting the man or woman of your dreams (there’s a whole genre devoted to that!) the family novel, where it’s the ups and downs of family life (The Family At One End Street is one of my favourites) moving to a new house or a new country and there’s plenty more.  But I can’t think of a single book which covers the experience of parents suddenly bereft of their offspring because they’ve gone to Uni.  Going to uni, yes, but for those of us “Who also serve who only stand and wait” as the Poet Milton would put it – no.

And it really is quiet.

Paperbacks!

I’m delighted to say that the paperbacks of A Hundred Thousand Dragons and Off The Record have been released.  I saw them both in Waterstones yesterday (and it’s a very nice feeling to see your book on the shelves, I can tell you!) so you can, of course, get them from Waterstones or, as the phrase goes, from any good bookshop.  They’re “Trade” paperbacks, which means they’re sold to the trade or, as we usually say, to bookshops.  Trade paperbacks are bigger than mass-market paperbacks and have superior paper and binding.  They are, more or less, a hardback book but in a stiff paper cover and, of course, they’re cheaper than a hardback.

Amazon.co.uk have them both in stock. Amazon.com (USA) have A Hundred Thousand Dragons. Presumably Off The Record will be coming soon.  However, although A Hundred Thousand Dragons is available from Amazon.co.uk, it takes some finding, for some mysterious reason, so here’s the link:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hundred-Thousand-Dragons-Haldean-Mysteries/dp/1847512534/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1315765321&sr=8-4

The Amazon.com link is:

http://www.amazon.com/Hundred-Thousand-Dragons-Haldean-Mysteries/dp/1847512534/ref=sr_1_11?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315766046&sr=1-11

The Amazon.co.uk link for Off The Record is:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Off-Record-Jack-Haldean-Mysteries/dp/1847513042/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1315765495&sr=1-7

Finish it!

There was a letter in a writing magazine I picked up from Puzzled, UK, asking for advice.  Puzzled is a member of a writing class and has written the first three chapters of a novel.  So far so good.  Puzzled’s tutor thinks it has potential.  Even better.  But – and this is where Puzzled needs advice – he doesn’t want to write any more in case he’s going in the wrong direction.  He wants to send it out to publishers to get advice (praise?) on how good it is and what direction the novel should go in.

*Sigh*

Poor guy.

Don’t do it; just don’t do it.

One has ordinary feelings of human pity, after all.

Look, it’s not easy writing novels, not even bad ones.  There’s a lot of typing for a start and times when, in the throes of Literature, you could have your feet up in front of Top Gear, walking the dog, catching up with your jet-setting celebrity lifestyle, drinking cocoa or counting how many matchsticks it will take to complete your model of Nelson’s Victory.  Any of these activities can be seen as preferable to stewing away in front of a computer screen.  Oh, I’d include cleaning the cat-tray and knocking nails into walls with my forehead along with those.

A partly-finished book is just that; unfinished. It’s absolutely impossible to tell if it’s any good unless you have the finished article.  If Puzzled could stop thinking of himself as a writer and think of himself as a reader, then he’d answer his own question.

After all, how many books have you bought, Dear Reader, (to use a charming, old fashioned phrase) where the end’s missing?  (Not counting the tatty paperback from outside the charity shop!) It’s not just books, either. If, for instance, we all flocked to see Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull and it stopped just as Indy approached the Hidden Temple because the writer couldn’t think what happened next, then there’d be tart, disgruntled comments and then some.

You see, despite some evidence to the contrary, editors and agents are human beings.  I’m not kidding.  Yes, I know certain of the tribe wear barbed-wire vests, breath fire and sacrifice their young under the full moon (we’ve all got faults) but honest to God, they’re human. They like to know how a story ends.  And if the author doesn’t know how the story ends – well, who does?  And why should they care?  And if the novel has skidded off in the wrong direction?  Well, it’s up to the author to fix it.  And what’s the wrong direction anyhow?

Besides that, it’s only after finishing a book that you, the writer, gets to look at it as a whole.  Is that the best place to start?  Should I move the passage about the exploding nasal-hair tweezers to Chapter Four?  Do I really need to include all that information about the home-life of Nabopolassar and the Neo-Babylonian Empire in the thrilling chase scene in Chapter Ten and should I make Michael Finnegan a de-frocked priest with the best collection of cheese-lables in South Dakota or a Belfast bus driver? And hasn’t the line It was all a dream been used before?

Finishing a book is only the start;  there’s stuff to do afterwards.

And what if, after having spent ages writing it and it gets rejected?  Well, I’m not sure how to break it to Puzzled, but there’s a chance this might happen.  Some years ago, I attended a workshop run by Simon Trewin, the well-known agent.  Mr Trewin, a highly-experienced professional, is open to new ideas and very encouraging to unpublished writers. But no one, he said, needs another novel.  Sad, isn’t it?  Particularly when that novel’s yours.  Yep.  And how many manuscripts does Mr Trewin get a year? Oh, about six thousand.  And how many does he take on?  About six.

So don’t put unnecessary obstacles in your way. There’s enough real ones to go round, believe you me. Writing can be fun, an enjoyable way of getting stuff off your chest, of recording events, of remembering what happened.  It can be all these things and many more.  But if you want other people to read it, please, Puzzled, finish it first.

What Would Grandma Do?

Peter was in London this week at the height of the Direct Shopping Spree (also known as riots) that were kicking off.  The point is, he didn’t know they were happening.  Not that he’s chronically unobservant, you understand, but he was in central London, not Tottenham, Croydon or Hackney.  They were harder to miss in Manchester, as they were in the middle of town.  It was only by a total fluke I decided not to go into Manchester that afternoon but to go shopping elsewhere, where all was peace and calm.

It’s often been said that, notwithstanding the fact that, by and large, we have better houses, are better fed, better off and better clothed than people only a few decades ago (i.e. we have more stuff and live longer to enjoy it) we’re more nervy and less optimistic than previous generations. Part of it's envy (ask any rioter) that there's  really cool stuff  heavily advertised that we can't afford.   Part of that is, of course, taking for granted the things we do have which used to be the privilege of a very few, such as eating well all the time, having a car and lots of clothes.

If, say, my grandma could pop in from the 1930’s she’d wonder what anyone had to grumble about. The idea of a machine which did the laundry by the press of a button instead of hours scrubbing away at a washboard, a cooker which could switch on or off automatically, chickens that came ready-done instead of covered in feathers (she kept hens) a car to do the shopping in and her grandchildren, instead of going into Service as maids, as she did at the age of twelve, are going to, are at, or have been to university would have seemed like a cross between pure fantasy and unimaginable luxury.  She wouldn’t be able to wait to pin her hat on and nip round to tell the neighbours about it…

And the neighbours would probably be out.  Or not know her.  Why?  Because instead of standing at the front doorstep, grumbling about the weather, they’re all indoors with the telly on.

And the telly, in between adverts for  perfect lifes fuelled by More Stuff with the subliminal message that if you don't have this product you're a complete saddo, tells us that London is virtually in a state of civil war and Manchester’s apocolyptic.  All the problems that used to be comfortably Out There are now very much In Here, in our homes.  In some ways, of course, this is a very good thing.  We’re having a collection at church tomorrow for famine relief in the Horn of Africa, just one of the many, many collections that been have taken up to help the poor beggars who are starving.  It feels like something we ought to help with, because we’ve all seen pictures of the famine on the telly.

Absolutely. Instead of just dealing with our own problems, we’re confronted with every truly awful problem everywhere, such as earthquakes, famines, wars and – to come back to where I came in – riots.  It can feel like mere frivolity to be happy when life is so ghastly for others.  It doesn’t take much imagination to realise that It Could Be You, even though it isn’t and probably won’t be.

It’s ironic that the telly, which really is a window on a wide world, has made that world so much smaller.  So don’t feel guilty when yet another pundit ticks you off on the telly for being more miserable than your ancestors and demands, in that hectoring way, that you should Cheer up!  Now! Ignorance may be bliss, but it’s still ignorance. I don’t know what grandma would do, but we’re stuck with, I’m afraid.

Castles in Wales

I’ve just got back from Pembrokeshire where the Gordon-Smiths disported themselves for the summer holiday.  Disported is about the right word, because the kids did hugely energetic things like jet-ski-ing (Jenny only fell off once) and I achieved a lifetime’s ambition; I bought a wetsuit.  For the last diddly-dum years I’ve stood on the edge of the various crusty bits of Britain while Peter, a hardy type, assures my from the briny blue that, “It’s all right once you get in!  It’s lovely!  Come on!”

And I, shivering by the sea, am forced, despite my better judgement, to plunge in.  And, d’you what?  It is cold and I do freeze.  Not this year though!  That layer of neoprene makes all the difference.  Within a day, the entire family, bar Peter, had also bought wetsuits.  Score:  one to me, I think! Here's Elspeth and Jenny being happy.

It wasn’t all swimming, though.  Pembrokeshire is home to loads of castles.  There were three within easy reach of where we stayed; Pembroke itself, Carew and my favourite, Manorbier.  It’s not very well know, but you might have seen it in the BBC TV adaptation of the Narnia Stories some years ago.  There’s proper rooms with enclosed passages so (because it isn’t very well known) you can get a proper Indiana Jones-y feeling of discovery.  Pembroke Castle also has proper rooms and passages but there’s far more visitors.  What Pembroke does have, though, is the Wogan Cave.  This is a big cave in the base of Pembroke Rock itself, which was lived in in pre-historic times.  There’s a huge gated entrance that overlooks the water, but you get to it by the 56 steps of the medieval spiral staircase.  Oddly enough, I’ve been spending a lot of time recently dreaming up a cave used in ancient times where Jack encounters some fairly dark doings. Admittedly my cave is beneath a neo-Classical temple but a Norman castle is sort of close enough for me to feel that this was the place I’d been imagining brought to life.

If you’ve seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part one, you’ll know another place we visited.  The dunes and beach of Freshwater West on the Atlantic coast is where Bill and Fleur’s Shell Cottage was filmed and where poor Dobby meets his end.  It’s an amazing beach with a great sweep of sand.  Shell Cottage, unfortunately, had to be taken down after it was filmed, but the beach is unmistakable.  I can’t think of a better place for a house-elf to be buried!

Beginings...

There was the beginning yesterday of an event which I hope will be repeated.  It was a sort of travelling party.  Jane Finnis, Rebecca Jenkins, Jennifer Palmer, myself and assorted family all met up in Manchester for a very merry lunch in Bella Italia and then went for a shufti round the newly re-opened costume museum.  Good friends, decent food and something interesting to look at… Good all round, yes?

Jane Finnis, of course, writes the adventures of the Roman innkeeper, Aurelia, which happen round Aurielia’s inn, The Oak Tree, on the road to York.  Rebecca Jenkins’ hero is the ex-cavalry officer, Raif Jarret, is the Duke of Penrith’s agent in 1811, who discovers murder and mayhem in Durham and the surrounding countryside and I, of course, chronicle the adventures of Jack Haldean, the ex-R.F.C. pilot, in the 1920’s.  So, as yesterday was a new beginning, I thought it would be a nice idea to see where Jane, Rebecca and my fictional counterparts began!

It was a beautiful August dawn, the best sort of summer weather.  The only thing that spoilt it was the body.

I didn’t notice him at first.  I unbolted the front door and strolled out across the forecourt and up the short track to the main road, enjoying the fresh morning air.  The market day traffic was coming down the hill, heading into town.  I watched three farmers leading donkeys loaded with baskets of vegetables, then a creaking ox-cart piled with sacks, and two barefoot girls carrying a cage of chickens and driving some goats.  The goats scattered as one of our neighbours trotted past in a smart Roman two-wheeled gig, calling out ‘Morning, Aurelia,’ and I gave him a wave. A gang of native field-slaves shambled into view, driven uphill by a couple of mounted Roman overseers with whips.  One of the natives turned and spat in my direction when the overseers weren’t looking. The low sunlight coloured everything gold, even the scruffy slaves.

Get Out Or Die by Jane Finnis.



It was early evening in late July.  The vast sky was brushed with clouds.  Pinks intermixed with soft blues and dim charcoal all hung against a luminous satin ground.  A rider plodded along the path that ran through the wide expanse of wheat grass spreading out to the horizon.  Both man and horse bore themselves with that air of detached resignation common to travellers who know it is a steady pace that goes the distance.  The road crept up a broad flank of land then dropped towards a squat manor house tucked away in a dell.  At the shoulder of the rise the rider checked his horse.  Straightening his back and rubbing the aching muscle at his neck, he sat contemplating the scene before him.

The Duke’s Agent by Rebecca Jenkins



With a feeling of relief, Jack Haldean walked into the dim green interior of the beer-tent.  My word, it was like an oven out there.  A noisy oven, where the laboured thump of the Breedenbrook band mixed with the shrieks of excited children on the helter-skelter, hoarse shouts from the hoop-la and coconut shies, sharp cracks from the rifle-range and the hollow, oddly mournful music of the steam-organ on the roundabouts, all grilling under a blazing sun.

He took off his straw hat and fanned himself.  It was easily as hot as Spain, the difference being that no Spaniard, and certainly none of his relations, ever expected him to do anything in the middle of the day but sleep.  They certainly wouldn’t lug him out to a village fête.

Haldean found a space on a bench and wriggled his backbone into a comfortable position against a sturdy tent-pole. His cousin, Gregory Rivers, was standing at the trestle-table bar, waiting patiently to be served.  Haldean relaxed, soaking up the low rumble of conversation, savouring the contrast between the muffled din outside and the slow, placid voices within.  The smell of hot canvas, the smell of hot grass, the pungent reek of tobacco and the sweet smell of beer…

“Cheers,” said Greg, handing him a pewter mug.  He took a long drink.  “Good Lord, I needed that.”  He looked at Haldean suspiciously. “You seem jolly pleased with yourself.”

A Fête Worse Than Death by Dolores Gordon-Smith