Elspeth's made a film!

There’s been lots of feasting, festivity and jollity recently, as the local church celebrated its 175^th anniversary.  There were – and are – various parties, masses and events, but the one that’s dominated the Gordon-Smith household is that Elspeth made a film, which was shown at a big party with the Bishop and other luminaries. 

I think it’s really good.  She asked people to send in photos, then linked them together in themes, with an interview from a parishioner played over the pictures, together with a music soundtrack and the whole thing moves along at a cracking pace. 

That pace came from the editing!  Naturally, if people are speaking naturally, they don’t (usually, at any rate) talk in coherent, polished phrases without hesitation or deviation.  I know; I typed up some of the transcripts of the interviews so Elspeth could get a script together and believe me, I know!  The trick is to make it sound natural while cutting out all the bits that would drive you mental if you had to listen to a recording.

It was an interesting exercise, typing up the transcripts.  I write a lot of dialogue and try hard to get it as natural as possible.  But, like the edited version of Elspeth’s film soundtrack, it’s an impression of what’s natural rather than the real thing.

Anyway, take a look for yourself.  (As you can tell, I’m bursting with pride about the entire thing!) 

It’s on Youtube and the title is The Parish.  Stalybridge

I hope you enjoy it!

Can reading fairy tales make you dumb?

Richard Dawkins ruffled some feathers this week by questioning the value of reading fairy stories to children. Buried under the attack in fairy stories is, of course, an attack upon religion, which, for someone who doesn't believe, Professor Dawkins seems morbidly interested in.  I'm not quite so sure why he wants everyone to agree with him - safety in numbers perhaps - but he clearly relishes being controversial

Well, religion is another issue; I don't honesty think anyone has ever been rationally argued into believing or disbelieving.  You either tend to believe or not, then find arguments which support your point of view.

Do fairy tales support a belief in religion?  (This is religion in its broadest sense, a belief in the supernatural and supernatural agencies).

It sounds as if he has a point but... Well, I don't think so. After all, I learned at an early age that Santa and the Tooth Fairy weren't real.  I never did get to the Magic Faraway Tree, find Narnia at the back of the Wardrobe (I looked!  Often!) however many old oil lamps I rubbed, no genies appeared, there were no fairies at the bottom of the garden, Middle Earth was mysteriously missing from history books and by the time Harry Potter turned up on platform nine and three quarters, I had more than an inkling that JK Rowling had made up a story and wasn't merely reporting facts

I like dragons.  Not for pets, you understand.  

By rights I should have rejected the supernatural in disappointed disgust. It's not true, is it?  No.  It's fiction.  And the world of magic and myth isn't true either in the did-it-really-happen sense. But what actually happened is that I went onto to enjoy a whole world of stories (fiction means it's made up, after all) such as Terry Pratchett's Discworld and virtually anything with dragons in it. Readers, even young readers, are more sophisticated than a straightforward correlation between Real=Respect would have you believe.  And the more you read, the more sophisticated you become. 

Anything can happen between the covers of a book.  Be warned! 

And religion?  Well, I still go to church, even though I don't believe in fairies.

Nice review

There was a nice review of After The Exhibition published in Booklist the other day.
Here it is!

Dashing Major Jack Haldean returns in this classic British murder mystery set in London between the wars. The story begins as Jack and his friend, Bill Rackham, a chief inspector at Scotland Yard, attend an exhibition organized by Lythewell and Askern, a respected firm dealing in church art. Colin Askern, son of one of the owners, is there with a young woman, Betty Wingate, a distant relation of his stepmother. The next day, Betty appears at Scotland Yard, claiming she’s seen the dead body of a woman at Beech View Cottage, which is near the Lythewell’s home and where the mysterious Signora Bianchi is staying. Everyone thinks Betty has had a bad dream, but Haldean, already smitten by Betty, promises to investigate. In a case that turns incredibly complex, Haldean finds himself involved with murder, blackmail, mistaken identities, and a hidden fortune. Fans of Agatha Christie and dedicated Anglophiles will enjoy this entertaining and well-wrought traditional mystery, which will keep readers guessing until the very last page.

Dedication

            This is a problem I never expected to have.  Don’t get me wrong;  it’s a nice problem, but it’s still a bit of a puzzle.  I’ve dedicated books to my Other Half (aka Peter) to my Dad, to my sister, to a couple of old mates and to various of the offspring. Fine.  Good.   It’s a nice way of saying “Hi” and it’s a great thing to be able to do.  And, I imagine I’ll carry on doing that as and when the moment arises.

            But with the latest, After The Exhibition, I wanted to dedicate it to one of my literary heroes.  The trouble is, PG Wodehouse is dead and so, come to that, is Agatha Christie.  Which is very inconvenient of them.  So who else...?

            Well, there’s one author who I think is the bee’s knees who is still, happily, very much among us, and that’s JK Rowling. 

            Now, stop me if I’ve mentioned this before, but I loooooove Harry Potter.  I love the way the story’s set up, how the whole arc continues over seven books, how we’re pulled into to a totally believable other world that you could swear runs alongside our own.  I love the humour, the wit and the suspense. I love the characters and the plot, the quirkiness and the whole vast richness of the world.

            More than that, it’s a family affair.  I was introduced to Harry Potter by the girls when they were about ten or so.  From then on, discussing Harry was (and is) a conversation we could always have.  For instance, when Helen was seeking a distraction from a fearsomely academic essay on social anthropology she was writing, she turned up an internet Harry Potter quiz and we all had a happy quarter of an hour or so discussing wizards.

            So, I dedicated After The Exhibition to JK Rowling. I know she loves classic mysteries and the Robert Galbraith series is pretty good, so I thought there was an odds on chance she’d enjoy it.  Naturally I sent her a copy.  And, on Friday, I received a really friendly hand-written letter from her thanking me.

            That is just one of the nicest things ever. That’s special.  And it’s going in a frame.  Wow.  Life is good.

            PS:  so is After The Exhibition!

Take the Pascal Moon away from the first moon you thought of…

            Depending on where you live, you might not agree, but here in Manchester, the weather’s been great.  (That’s a sentence you don’t often hear!)   I’m only hoping it lasts until Easter Sunday so we can get out in the garden!

            Easter is, of course, the season of new life.  The name is the last remnant of the worship of the Anglo-Saxon goddess of the Spring, Estre or Oestre.  Easter Bunnies are the scaled down version of the Celtic sacred hares.  Exactly why Easter bunnies should bring eggs, I’m not sure, but I think it’s very obliging of them.

Talking of bunnies, Jessica, the eldest, got a baby rabbit.  He's called Buttons and is soooo cute.  I don't know if he'll produce an egg, but it seems unlikely

Every so often someone has a grumble about the way Easter moves about.  In church terms, this is a Movable Feast. (Yep, I know it sounds like a picnic) celebrated on the first Sunday following the first full moon after the spring equinox.

However – pay attention at the back there -  the spring equinox is fixed for this purpose as March 21 and the "full moon" is actually the paschal moon, which is based on 84-year "paschal cycles" established in the sixth century, would you believe. It rarely corresponds to the astronomical or actual full moon.  Just to make life even more interesting, the Eastern churches, such as the Greek and Russian orthodox, count it up the same way, but use the Julian calendar (on which March 21 is April 3) and a 19-year paschal cycle.

            I think I’ll just check the calendar same as usual and celebrate at the same time as everyone else.

The new life bit is absolutely unmissable though. The garden’s gone mental.  Only a few weeks ago, there were bare patches on the so-called lawn and now it looks (from a distance) green.  All over. Mostly.

  Mind you, I did help it along. To the intense amusement of my Other Half, I bough a pair of rigid plastic sandals with huge spikes sticking out the bottom and walked around the grass, aerating the lawn.  Apparently grass-roots like a bit of fresh air, which makes you wonder why it grows underground.

  I mean, if  the roots likes air that much, why not stick them above ground to take a breather now and again, rather than waiting for someone with huge spikes sticking out of the soles of their feet to come and give it a dose of the much needed?  It seems like a rum state of affairs to me and one that might have given Darwin a bit of pause for thought.  It’s hardly survival of the fittest, is it?  Although, by the time two dogs and various humans have romped over it, it’s more a case of the survival of the flattest.

            Happy Easter everyone!  I hope you get lots of eggs.

           

Nice weekend

Sometimes everything just pans out to a great few days.  Thursday evening was spent listening to John Sackville read A Hundred Thousand Dragons, my new audiobook which I downloaded from Amazon’s Audible range. 

It’s always a bit nerve wracking listening to your own work being read, but John nailed it.  I honestly couldn’t be happier with the way he got the characters across.  Result!

Friday contained a very unexpected treat.  Would you, said Jessica, the eldest, down the phone, like to come to the Hilton in Manchester for a champagne afternoon tea with me and James?  Well, you know, twist my arm...  But why, O child?  I enquired.  What’s brought this opulence into your (and my) life?  To cut a long story short, she’d been given a voucher for the tea for a birthday present and Sarah and Nigel, who should have been going with her, couldn’t make it.  It’s an ill wind... So me and Angela, who happened to be there for the afternoon, arrayed ourselves in appropriate garments and the four of us had an hour of complete indulgence amongst the champagne, tiny sandwiches and yummy cakes. 

I don't know why I look so startled.  I was hugely happy!

More champagne, Mum? asked Jessica.  I was steadily working my way through the different teas.  I’d done Green Gunpowder and Darjeeling, had tried the peppermint and was considering the jasmine.  Tea or champagne?  It’s my perfect dilemma.

The reason why Angela was around this weekend was that we were going to the Big Do at the BBC’s site in Media City, Salford.

Who's calling?

  The highlight of the day was a studio tour where we all got to play in a radio drama studio.  If you’ve ever wondered why the pages of the script don’t rustle on the radio (I have) it’s because they’re on laminated paper and don’t make a sound as you turn over the script.  Want to know what makes the sound of beating wings, as a flock of birds rise up from crumbling towers?  That’s about seven pairs of rubber gloves tied together with an elastic band and flapped vigorously.  A door shutting is, however, a real door.  There’s one in the studio in a door frame. 

Video killed the radio star....

One really weird part of the radio studio was the Dead Room or, to give it its proper title, the Anechoic Chamber.  It’s a L-shaped room where the walls and ceiling consist of hundreds of foam blocks in various shapes, which completely absorb and deaden the sound.  The BBC’s Dead Room is actually a semi-anechoic chamber, as the floor is tiled.  Because there’s nothing for the sound waves to bounce off, it’s perfect for replicating the sound of outdoors.  (There’s nothing, in a field, say, for your voice to bounce off).  Add a few birds or a cow mooing on a soundtrack and it sounds as if your characters are chatting in the great wide open spaces.  The L shape makes another effect possible.  Say you want someone to fall off a cliff, for instance, and the noise of their protest will fall away (“Arrrrrrrrrghhhh!”)  as they do.  Actors object to falling off cliffs.  (I know, I know, but you can’t get the staff.) So, in the Dead Room, if someone runs round the corner yelling, their voice fades away in a perfect Doppler effect, exactly like someone falling.  Weird.

It’s an odd sensation, being in the Dead Room, with the sound being so – well – dead.  I found a headache starting after about five minutes or so.  Apparently the complete Anechoic Chambers (the floor is foam and you walk on a net suspended over it) that are used in industry to test noise are a bit more than weird.  The time spent in them is limited to about fifteen minutes as, after that, you can hear the circulation of your own blood and the sound of your own lungs, etc., which is very odd indeed.

The weekend finished with us taking advantage of the hour change and the weather with a walk in the park, where the  old stocks have been replaced.  Well, you’ve got to do it, haven’t you?

     

After The Exhibition

I was expecting my brother to call – he’s a real early bird – so I didn’t think twice when the doorbell rang at quarter past eight in the morning.  I put down my cup of tea and opened the door (still in my PJ’s) to find not Mike but a courier, holding a box of what I recognised straight away as books. 

I beamed so happily at the man he blinked.  “There must be,” he said, glancing down at the box, “something nice in here.”

There was.  After The Exhibition all crisp and new and looking just gorrrjuss.  Jack’s latest mystery takes place after an exhibition of church art in London, where various events, complications, machinations and mysteries are set in progress.  Church art, as I’m well aware, doesn’t by itself suggest murder, mayhem and sudden death; I hope it might – after you’ve read the book! 

Film Night

On Friday, ITV showed Practical Magic.  It had a great cast – Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman – and the premise looked good.  A family of New England witches want to rid themselves of a curse thoughtlessly laid on them back in Sixteen-O-Whenever that any man any of the girls in the family fell in love with would die.  (There didn’t seem to have ever been any wizards in the family; the progeny seemed to be exclusively girls.)

Well, so far, so good and the first few minutes were definitely played for laughs in a sort of Hocus Pocus way.  Then Real Life intruded as the two sisters, Sensible Sally and Good-time Gillian, have to face the problem of a bloke picked up by GT Gillian who is what you might call overly intrusive in his attentions.  Sensible Sally bumps him off and then the two sisters, horrified at the thought of murder, try and bring him back to life. 

The trouble is, that the film couldn’t decide if it was a comedy or a horror.  It veered uneasily between both, undercutting itself at every point.  The moral for writers?  Decide what the tone is and stick to it. Obviously, use comedy, suspense and even horror to liven up the story but the overall tone should be very clearly one thing or another.

A film there wasn’t any doubt about is Captain Phillips, which Peter and I saw last night together with the eldest, Jessica, accompanied by a pizza and a bottle of wine.  Tom Hanks gives a wonderful performance, utterly believable as the professional merchant captain whose ship is hijacked by Somali pirates.  The film buzzes from the word go and cracks along.  A great way to spend a Saturday night!  

The voice of Jack

John Sackville.  He’s an actor – a really good one – and he phoned me on M|onday.  Why?  Because he’s going to be reading A Hundred Thousand Dragons, Trouble Brewing and Off The Record for Audible, Amazon’s audio book arm. So, while I was shoving Lucky, the three legged dog off the sofa – I was sitting on his sofa in his place and he resented it and showed it by trying to sit on my knee – I was discussing Literature with some serious talent.   John starts recording Dragons on Friday and wanted to check the pronunciation of names and the various accents the characters have.  Here’s his websites if you want to know more:

www.johnsackville.com
www.theenglishvoice.com

I really appreciated the phone call.  It’s easy, when you’re writing a character, to hear the voice in your head, but that’s no guarantee that the same voice will come across to the reader.  As a matter of fact, it had, more or less, as far as John was concerned.  I’m really looking forward to hear him  read the books.  I must admit (in my dreams!) that so far, my choice of an actor to play Jack has more or less started and stopped with Benedict Cumberbatch.  (After all, he plays virtually anything else on screen that isn’t being played by Martin Freeman, so why not?) However, call me fickle, if you like, but John Sackville looks the part as well as sounds it.

I appreciated the call, too, because it showed what a professional approach he has.  In contrast, poor old Elspeth, daughter no. 3, has just written a script – a really good one – for a music video, a script that really added to the story of the song.  She got an email today from the video company, saying that the singer decided months ago not to go with the company.  She forget to tell them.  So that’s all that development work down the pan, which is frustrating, to say the least.  This was the singer’s debut, and it’s not the best of starts.  However, the company liked what Elspeth came up with, so who knows?  The author of the next YouTube sensation might be about to do her thing...!

After The Exhibition is out next month.  Let the countdown commence.  I’ll have to have something to take my mind off the gaping void the ending of the Olympics is going to leave in my life.  At least Britain’s (Scotland’s) men got through to the semis in the curling.  It’s like snooker on ice, but with lots more shouting and is totally gripping.   C'mon, Scotland!

  

Don't Try This At Home. Or anywhere else

            I’ve been thinking about poisons recently.  Not, you understand, for personal use, but professionally, so to speak.  I remember ages ago now, at the long defunct Dead On Deansgate crime writing conference, hearing four forensic scientists speak on a panel.   One and all, they were dismissive about the idea of someone being bumped off in modern times by poison. “In thirty years,” stated one scientist dismissively, “I’ve never seen a single case of deliberate poisoning.”    I’d never thought there could be fashions in murder, but there obviously are. Poisoning is soooo last century. It’s so outdated, arsenic might as well be the new beige.

            And yet...  I dunno, but I’d think I’d like the aforesaid F.S,’s to at least bear the possibility in mind when confronted with the mortal remains. 

            You can’t nip into your local branch of Boots and ask for poison, admittedly.  In 1861, the Offences Against The Person act was passed which deals with poisoning. It covers the possibilities of causing death, grievous bodily harm or even – I like this – annoyance.

            Yep, I’d be annoyed.  I’d as far as to say I’d be downright tetchy, if not a little vexed.

            Poisoning was certainly a possibility that medical practitioners had to bear in mind in years gone by. The Ancient Greeks and Romans seemed never happier amongst the deadly doses, favouring a natural way of causing unnatural death.  Claudius, for instance, was done in with mushrooms (it was Mrs Claudius who did the deed) but hemlock, belladonna. laburnum and foxgloves were all pressed into service.

            Perhaps the go-to brew of choice as a relative-ridder, however, was aconite.  So prevalent was its use that the Emperor Trajan banned its cultivation.

Aconite is a beautiful plant, which can be bought readily in garden centres and online.  It’s other names are monkshood  and (I have to admit, I think this sounds cool) wolfsbane.  Apparently it used to be used against wolves and Severus Snape includes it in the potion he whips up to prevent Remus Lupin succumbing to the full moon and turning into a werewolf.  It’s deadly.  Seriously, it’s acutely poisonous and not something I’d want growing in my garden. In 1856, two Catholic clergymen, Fr James Gordon and Fr Angus MacKenzie Eskdale died in Dingwall, Scotland, after eating an aconite sauce.  The housekeeper had used the bulbs, thinking they were horseradish. In 1882, a Dr Lamson slipped an inconvenient relative a slice of Dundee cake with aconite.  Andre Noble, the Canadian actor, died after mistaking aconite for an edible plant.  More worryingly – and bang up to date – if you put monkshood seeds into Google you’ll come across the chilling tale of someone who is feeling very ill after eating a plate of leftovers from the fridge.  They found an empty packet of aconite seeds...

Finished the proof!

If you look on Amazon you’ll see the new book, After The Exhibition.  It’s out in March and I’ve just finished reading through the proofs.  And, although I say it myself, I think it’s really good, with lots of twisty turns and general bafflement as to what’s what.

The downside of finishing a book, though, is that I can’t put off any longer thinking about a new one and thinking’s really hard.  Yes, I know X has bumped off Y, but that’s only the start of the story.  The chances are X isn’t who they say they are and Y probably isn’t either, and they all have to have a reason for acting as they do.  And what are they doing anyway? And where do they live and how do they earn their living, etc, etc.

The great thing to get sorted out in this sort of story is what does the villain want.  Now that’s a bit of reverse psychology, as (naturally) our attention is focused on the detective, whether it be Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot or Jack Haldean, and it’s their thoughts and feelings that we follow.  However, behind it all, like the god in the machine, is the malefactor, malefacting away like mad.  After all, if Moriaty hadn’t decided to become a criminal mastermind and become an accountant, say, instead, Sherlock wouldn’t have hounded him to the edge of the Riechenbach Falls. 

So what does my villain want?  This is work in progress....

The Twelve Days of Christmas or the dangers of online shopping

December 13th

Darling!  What a wonderful and truly unusual present!  Admittedly, the ground’s a bit frozen at the moment for planting pear trees and housing the partridge is a bit of a struggle, as it won’t fit inside the budgie’s cage.  Still, we’ll find a way.

Your True Love xxx

December 14th

Darling!  Two turtle doves!  How sweet – but the budgie’s cage really isn’t that big and I’m not sure they and the partridge get on all that well. The cat’s enjoying having them in the house though.  Er... what exactly am I meant to do with them?  Also, I think you should check your Amazon account as you seem to have repeated the order for the pear tree and the partridge.

Your True Love xx

December 15th

Darling, I really think we need to talk.  Three French hens are a very unusual present, and I suppose the eggs will come in useful – or would do, if the poor creatures weren’t worried by the partridges. There really isn’t room in the flat for them all and the feathers are making me sneeze. The budgie is now deceased.

The window is now beginning to look very crowded with all the pear trees on the balcony outside.

 Please check your Amazon account!

Your True Love x

December 16th

Look, what’s with all the damn birds for Pete’s sake!  I don’t want to seem ungrateful, but the hens, the doves and the bloody partridges are enough to be going on with without four calling birds!  And more hens, doves and partridges.  And another ruddy tree!  Did I ever tell you I wanted to live in an aviary? Or a forest?  The cat’s given up and left home, the kitchen is full of feathers and the furniture is ruined – simply ruined with all the bird poop!  Stop it. Have a word with Amazon, will you?  Something must have gone wrong with your account.

Your True Love

December 17th

Okay, five gold rings are nice.  Thank you for those.  But enough with the birds! I couldn’t believe it when the postman delivered another batch of hens, doves, partridges and calling birds.  The noise is deafening and the neighbours are complaining.  The tree is on the balcony with the others. The balcony can’t take much more. Oh, and check your ruddy Amazon account!

 Your Love.

December 18^th

Are you having a laugh?  Six geese.  Six geese!  I can’t stop them laying eggs and who wants goose eggs?  Don’t you know that geese are lousy mothers?  They just drop their eggs anywhere, so the kitchen is a mass of egg-shells. 

The balcony has now collapsed.

Your former Love.

December 19th

I went to have a bath and what did I find?  Seven swans swimming.  Look, mate, you seem to be intent on driving me to a nervous breakdown, but you might at least let me have a bath in peace.  The bloody swans ate the soap and swallowed the loofah, then hurled all over the bathroom floor – which I can hardly see anymore because of all the feathers and egg-shells – and didn’t you know that swans have lousy tempers.  I know I loved my little budgie and was always fond of birds, but enough is enough. 

I see you’ve thoughtfully included yet another pear tree with your order.  It’s planted in the car-park.  Any more birds and I’ll bury you underneath it.

I can’t believe I was ever your True Love.  I must have been mental.

December 20^th

Arrggh!!!!  More birds and yet another tree!!  And – this is the weirdest thing yet – eight milkmaids, complete with cows, arrived and said you’d sent them.  They’re outside, by the collapsed balcony.  I will not have eight cows in the flat.

December 21^st

Did you think I needed cheering up?  Because you’ve got a funny way of letting me know.  Along with yet more birds, another tree and yet more milkmaids and cows, I’ve had a disco invasion.  Nine ladies – I use the term loosely -  with skyscraper heels and skirts so short you could hardly see them, barged in, turned the ipod to max, hung up a disco ball and danced all night, complaining all the time about the lack of talent. No blokes.  I suppose your next bright idea is to send a load of guys to keep the ladies company.  That’s a joke, by the way.

December 22^nd

OK, enough.  Ten Lords!!! And the usual consignment of birds, trees and milkmaids.

December 23^rd

Pipers??? Who asked for pipers? And where did you get the idea that bagpipes should be played indoors?  All I can really say is that with all the geese squawking and hens clucking and doves everywhere, I can hardly hear the pipers.  You are seriously weird.

December 24^th

Dear Mr Truelove,

Our client, your former fiancée, has contacted us with regard to the harassment caused by your so called “gifts”. When twelve drummers arrived she retired to a Home For The Bewildered and instructed us to send you the keys to the flat. 

Therefore we would take it as a sign of your good intent if you could immediately remove the following items, viz:

twelve partridges, twenty two turtle doves, thirty hens, thirty six calling birds, forty two geese and forty two swans, a total of a hundred and eighty four birds.

We also insist that you persuade the forty maids with their forty cows, the thirty six dancers, the thirty Lords, the twenty two pipers and the twelve drummers to remove themselves to more suitable accommodation forthwith. 

The twelve pear trees need to be uprooted and removed from the car park.

The forty gold rings will be retained against the expenses of renovating the flat.

We wish you the compliments of the season,

Yours,

Ms Carol Christmas (lawyer)

Curtain

So Poirot finally breathed his last in Curtain, an outstanding performance by David Suchet, added and abetted by Hugh Frazer. 

To tell the truth, it’s not my favourite book.  I’ve read it, of course, but it’s painful to see the jaunty, confident Poirot old and ill and – finally – dead.  I hate the hero dying!  I remember how traumatic it was when, at the age of eleven or thereabouts, I first read The Final Problem where Sherlock takes a dive off the Richenbach Falls.  I didn’t know what was coming and I remember my sense of absolute shock, made the more intense by the fact there wasn’t anyone who could understand how upsetting it was.  I mean, when The Final Problem was published, there was an outbreak of shocked grief, but I was about eighty years too late for the funeral.  Ho hum.  Sherlock sprang back from his watery grave but there’s no return for Poirot.

Apart from HP’s departure though, there’s other reasons why Curtain misses the bus.  Agatha Christie wrote it in the Second World War, together with Miss Marple’s final outing, Sleeping Murder, but neither book was published until the 1970’s.  Of the two books, Sleeping Murder, with its genuinely creepy, claustrophobic opening, as Gwenda, the heroine, finds the house she’s brought by chance becomes eerily familiar, is the most successful.  There may be odd anachronisms in the book, but they don’t hit you in the eye as they do in Curtain, where the action staggers uneasily between the late 30’s and the 1970’s.  Apart from anything else, how old is Captain Hastings?  Granted that he was wounded on the Somme in 1916, he must be at least ninety and, even if we turn a blind eye to the question of age, I just can’t see him wanting to poison Allerton, however protective he felt of his daughter, Judith.  It’s just not dans son character, as Poirot said on numerous occasions in other circumstances.  The Hastings we know – decent, impetuous and with a bit of a temper – would have wanted to knock Allerton’s block off, not poison him.   And Poirot as a murderer?  After having been assured, many times, that he “Does not approve of murder” I can’t help feeling that’s not dans son character either. 

I think the truth of the matter is that Agatha Christie was fonder of Miss Marple than Poirot.  In her autobiography she testifies to the importance of two elderly ladies, her Granny and her “Aunty Granny” as she was called in her upbringing.  There’s also a letter she wrote, on finding some carefully stored household goods – linen and pins and so on – saying, “You can see where Miss Marple comes from.” 

Poirot, on the other hand, she often found exasperating.  This feeling is turned to great comic effect when she has her alter-ego, Ariadne Oliver, go off on one about her detective, Sven Hjerson, in the brilliant Mrs McGinty’s Dead.

“How do I know why I ever thought of the revolting man?  I must have been mad!  Why a Finn when I know nothing about Finland?  Why a vegetarian? Why all these idiotic mannerisms he’s got?  These things just happen. You try something – and people seem to like it – and then you go on – and before you know where you are, you’ve got someone like that maddening Sven Hjerson tied to you for life.  And people write and say how fond you must be of him.  Fond of him?  If I ever met that bony, gangling  vegetable-eating Finn in real life, I’d do a better murder than any I’ve ever invented.”

Robin Upward, to whom these remarks are confided, stares at her in reverence.  He suggests that it would be a marvellous idea to have a real Sven Hjerson murdered by Ariadne.  He suggests (watch out for the Curtain reference!) that she could make a Swan Song book of it, to be published after her death, to which Ariadne stoutly replies, “No fear! What about the money?  Any money to be made out of murders, I want now.”

The truth of the matter is that Curtain is a very good idea, but (even the best of writers have weak spots) Agatha Christie wasn’t the right author to make it live.  And I don’t like Poirot dying. Sad times.

    

  

    

 

                    

Apple Chutney

Look, I don’t want to seem obsessed or anything, but I’ve still got apples in mind.  Before I plunge into the fruity part of the blog, though, I had an email from Jane Finnis, part of which read:

I’ve actually managed to add a comment to your blog. The trick seems to be, don’t click on Add a Comment (I mean why would you, it’s only what you want to do!) Instead click on Reply...that is if it’s really succeeded! I can’t quite believe it yet.

The only thing is, I can’t find the comment.  Maybe it’s under the sofa or the cat’s run off with it, but I can’t see it anywhere.  Sad times.  However, I do know what it was about. 

A couple of weeks ago, me, Jane and Rebecca Jenkins gave a talk in the wonderful old Portico Library in Manchester about writing murder mysteries. It was an ace evening, with a terrific audience.  The next day, as Becca and Jane departed, I pressed upon them a pot of my home-made chutney.  Jane thought it was the nicest chutney she’d ever had, and asked me for the recipe.  It comes from an ancient old cook book that belonged to my mother, so here it is. 

3lbs apples, peeled, cored and sliced (Get an apple corer!)

3ils onions (Peel them in a basin of water otherwise  your eyes will sting like blazes)

1lb sultanas or raisins

2 lemons

Fresh ginger root, peeled and chopped

1 and a half lbs of Demerara sugar

1 pint of malt vinegar

A large pan.

Grate the lemon rind and put the grated rind and the juice into the pan together with the other ingredients. 

Bring it to the boil, reduce the heat to very low and let it simmer until its nice and thick.  This will take an hour or so.  You know when its done when you can make a channel across the top of the chutney without it immediately filling with liquid. 

Pot and cover.

This will make about 4lbs of chutney.

I sterilize the jam jars in the microwave, by putting a tidgy bit of water in the jars and giving them about a minute and a half in batches of four jars at a time.  I tighten the lids whilst wearing a rubber glove, which gives a bit more power as you twist the lids on.

The other discovery was that the apple syrup - the result of my unsuccessful attempt to make apple jelly – tastes dropdead gorgeous in an apple suet pudding.    Wow.

Apples....

We’ve got apples.  Oh my days. as the youngest, Jenny, would say, do we have apples.  I suppose, if you plant apple trees, that’s what you can expect.  The thing is, we’ve only got two trees, a Worcester Pearmain and a Granny Smiths, and neither tree is that old, so I wasn’t really ready for the influx of apples the other week.

Even if you were as devoted to apples as Steve Jobs, you’d have a job to munch your way through this much of nature’s bounty.  Indeed, I don’t think it could be done.  So, obviously, I had to make something out of them.  Faced with pounds of the things, I bought an apple peeler, slicer and corer.  I got it from Amazon and it’s the most amazing gadget ever. (For dealing with apples, I mean; if you want to make a quilt or play the violin, it wouldn’t do you much good.)

Put the apple on the prongs on one end, turn the handle, and bingo!  One perfectly peeled apple with no core.  The apple itself is in a sort of spiral which looks really attractive.  Now, what I really wanted to make was apple jam, but, judging from the fact I couldn’t find any recipes, I don’t think apples jam very well.  (It sounds as if they’re failed jazz musicians, but you know what I mean.)

Chutney, yes; we now have pots of it in the cellar. Dried apples; yep.  Apple sauce?  Fine.  That’s in the freezer.  Hunting round the internet I came across something called apple butter, which is a sort of concentrated apple sauce that you can spread on toast;  fine.  Got it.  But apple jam?  No.  However, in an old cook book, I came across apple and rosemary jelly.  Now that sounded really nice, so it was out with the apple slicer and off we went.

You know when things just won’t work?  Why this lovingly slaved over substance wouldn’t turn into jelly, despite being boiled and adding pectin, I just don’t know.  It remained stubbornly as apple syrup.  But, as it turns out, apple syrup is rather nice.  So that’s a good few pots of apple syrup, then.

I was just congratulating myself on having dealt with the Gordon-Smith apple mountain, when I bumped into Jez, the caretaker at the local school.  He was lugging an immense bin bag.  What have you got there? I innocently asked.    Apples, he said.  The kids had sorted through the apple trees on the school grounds and chosen the best.  What was left – about forty pounds of Cox’s Orange Pippins – was going in the bin.

I couldn’t let him do it.  The apples were fine.  Yes, they might not have been supermarket standard, but their failings were definitely skin deep.  So it was out with the trusty slicer and off we went again.

And, d’you know, I’d just finished turning all the poor little reject Coxs into jars of stuff, when my pal, Jane Finnis rang.  She was coming to stay, but they had a bumper harvest of guess what.  And would I like a bag?  I must be mental, but, with the thought of the apple slicer in the cupboard, what could I say? 

Thirty Years!

Thirty years is a long time to be married.  Ask me.  I know.  When we celebrated our twenty-ninth wedding anniversary, Jessica declared that steps must be taken for our thirtieth.  Helen demurred.  No one, she said, celebrates their thirtieth.  Forty, yes.  Jessica disagreed.  After all, she said, by the time Mum and Dad get to their fortieth, they’ll be too old to enjoy it.  Yeah, right.  Watch this space, is all I can say!

So The Party was organised.  Jessica took charge and did a brilliant job, booking the hall, sending out the invitations, arranging the buffet, organising the DJ (our old mate, Keith) and his pal, Archie and keeping me and Peter firmly away from any knowledge whatsoever of the party, apart from telling us when we had to turn up.

And it was wonderful.  There were balloons and cakes and dancing and, best of all, lots and lots of friends who turned up for a really brilliant evening.  Elspeth did a fantastic presentation summing up what you can actually achieve in thirty years – watch it here on

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyTaQJ2A0lk&feature=youtu.be

The title is "Dolores and Peter - This is your life!" and it was great to see what a warm reaction it got.

It was one of those evenings where you truly felt that it couldn’t have been better.  So, if you were there on Saturday – didn’t we have a good time!  And if you weren’t – well, I wish you’d been there.

Weirdly Great

Writing is a sedentary occupation.  That, in a way, is one of its chief attractions.  So why, when Jessica, my beloved eldest and very sporty daughter said, “Mum!  You need to come running!” I didn’t promptly run in the opposite direction, I don’t know. 

She took me running.

It was awful.

My legs hurt, my knees hurt and I breathed like a leaky bellows.

“It’ll be better next time!” said Jessica brightly. 

OMG, next time????

Now one of my shiny new toys this year was an iphone.  “Perfect!” said Jessica, taking the phone from my nerveless fingers.  “You can download a running app.”

From Couch to 5K.  Okay....

It starts off all right, I suppose, and is full of pleasantly affirmative messages, but to someone who thought that lycra was something that other people wore, it’s all very odd.

“You need,” said Jessica brightly, “a goal,” and promptly signed me and her poor father up for a 5K run.

And so last Sunday I walked, ran and walked some more round Heaton Park.  I’ve got a medal that says I’ve done a 5K and – weirdly – it feels great. 

“Now,” said Jessica, “let’s do a mud run....”

 

Caring about Agatha Christie

There was quite a lot of excitement generated on the internet this week by the news that mystery write Sophie Hannah has been commissioned to  write a new Agatha Christie novel, starring the incomparable Hercule Poirot.  Here’s a link to the story which appeared the Independent.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/whodunnit-new-author-to-bring-agatha-christies-poirot-out-of-retirement-8797050.html

For the Harry Potter lovers amongst us, my friend, John Granger, made some interesting points about this news in his blog,

http://www.hogwartsprofessor.com/rowling-inc-to-follow-christie-estate-lead-and-commission-harry-potter-fan-fiction-under-its-own-trademark-brand/

All I really hope is that the new novel comes off properly.  There’s a real atmosphere about an Agatha Christie novel, an atmosphere as distinctive as Conan Doyle, Jane Austen or PG Wodehouse.  Like those authors, Agatha Christie’s style is easily parodied but, like those parodies, its very rare indeed that the genuine feel of the original is captured. 

So what’s so special about Agatha Christie?  The puzzles, of course.  First and foremost, the stories are clever.  The plots tie up, the loose ends are neatly knotted and the whole experience of reading the book gives a sense of completeness.  It can be (rather harshly) compared to a crossword puzzle but I think a far better comparison is a really good meal, where all the elements, from the table settings to the food, along with the perfectly picked wine, the right lighting and the warmth of the room, come together with great company to make a memorable, satisfying whole.  Whether that meal is round your own kitchen table with your family or in the Ritz hotel is fairly immaterial; a great meal is a great experience.

Couldn’t an Agatha Christie book be compared to a game of Cluedo? Not really; in Cluedo (Or, if you’re in America, Clue) three cards, the victim, the weapon, the location, are taken at random from the pack and put in a envelope.  It’s genuinely arbitrary.  This is not how AC works, and the reason she doesn’t work like that is her characters and her scene-setting.

Ah yes, her characters and scenes.  It’s a village, right?  And sort of stereotyped.  Well, only to a point.  There’s certainly a village feel to the books, as in it’s a place where people know who their neighbours are, even if the books aren’t set in an actual village.  We know enough about the characters to recognise them, to fill in the details for ourselves from our own experience.  And, when we get to the end and find out the murderer was X, we always feel that we should’ve known it was X all along.  Why? Because X’s character fits that of the murderer.  Right triumphs, evil is defeated, and along with it all, our curiosity has been slated. Our love of order, certainty and rationality is satisfied and, perhaps best of all, she’s never remotely pretentious.

    

What's in a name?

Editing a book, as I have been all week, is one of the really fun bits of writing. Actually making the stuff up is hard, but this part of the process is a lot easier.  It isn’t finished yet but (keep those fingers crossed) the end is in sight.  Editing is where you can add the finishing touches, fill up the pot holes, smooth everything out and make sure that it all hangs together. 

However, the perennial problem of titles is now upon me.  You’d think, wouldn’t you, that after the  effort of writing an entire book, to think of three or, at the most five, words would be easy-peasy.  Yes, but those few words have got to do so much; attract a reader, tell them something about the book and – just as importantly – not mislead them about what sort of book it is.

It’s amazing how hard it can be to come up with the right title.  It has to be pithy, memorable, relevant. A few words – maybe one word - that will jump out at the reader from the bookshop shelf and inspire them to part with hard-earned cash. Geez.

 Names are often a good bet and carry their own baggage of expectation. You don’t pick up Emma, for instance thinking she’s going to turn into Dracula. (Which would be confusing but fun.) Or it may reflect the book’s theme:  Pride and Prejudice or Death on the Nile.

In the heyday of the gothic novel, you could get away with titles such as Geralda, The Demon Nun, which could still be – just about – be used today. Joanna Polenipper, Female Horse Stealer, Foot-Pad, Smuggler, Prison Breaker and Murderer is probably too wordy for modern tastes but you’d be wrong in thinking that Joanna came to a bad end. At the end of the book, “Joanna was transported for her crimes, retrieved her character in Australia, married a rich settler and lived for many years respected and beloved by all who knew her.”

 If you found Joanna’s unexpected embrace of virtue unsettling, you’d probably be better sticking to another novel of the 1830’s, Lovel Castle, where the anxious author told his readers exactly what they were getting:  Lovel Castle, or The Rightful Heir Restored, a Gothic Tale Narrating how a Young Man, the supposed son of a Peasant, by a train of Unparalleled Circumstances, not only discovered who were his Real Parents, but that they came to Untimely Deaths; with his Adventures in the Haunted Apartment, Discovery of the Fatal Closet, and the Appearance of the Ghost of his murdered Father; relating also how the Murderer was brought to Justice, with his Confession and the restoration to the Injured Orphan of his title and estates.

They don’t write them like that any more.

The Cuckoo's Flown

Well, I’ve finished  The Cuckoo’s Calling and so, by now, have a great many other people, judging by the number of reviews on Amazon.  I’m surprised how many reviewers - crime fiction fans by their own account – praise the “unexpected twist” in the ending.  I don’t want to be a big spoil-sport, but the ending is hardly original.  Honestly.  I mean, it actually appears in the jokey lists drawn up in the heyday of Detective (as opposed to Crime) fiction as one of the things Not To Do, along with gems such as “Don’t have your villain one of a pair of identical twins” a nix on secret passages and putting the blame on that tired old stock figure, the sinister Chinaman. 

Another thing that various reviewers have been awed by is the occasional use of Latin and other quotations, pointing this up as evidence of great erudition.  Again, hold on.  Yes, yes,yes,yes, yes, of course JK Rowling is incredibly well read, but it’s also very well known that one of her favourite authors is Dorothy L Sayers and Dorothy L always has quotes in her chapter headings and throughout the books. To keep up with the amount of literature that Lord Peter has at his fingertips would require a medium-sized library.  It’s a hat-tip or homage and good fun. 

What is slightly more problematic for many reviewers is the band language.  It you took out all the F and C words, then it’d slim the book down by about 200 pages or thereabouts, but the characters in the story would undoubtedly talk like that in real life, so I’m not sure what the answer to that one is.   Offensive?  Not after the first few times particularly, as constant repetition dulls the shock value, but it’s a bit tedious to read, like any other frequently repeated word or phrase. 

One reviewer was worried about “Robert Galbraith” and his false biography, as an ex-soldier.  This, they pointed out, was a lie.  Well, so it is, but what surprised me was how many people evidently believed it before the truth came out.  There’s very little military detail in the book and (thank goodness) no graphic horror of mutilation, despite the hero, Comoran, having lost a leg in Afghanistan, or angst about  life under fire, but shedloads about life in the goldfish bowl of celebrity living.  Paparazzi are present like wasps at an August picnic and about as welcome.  Everyone is hounded wherever they go and the idea of privacy for the famous is a joke.  That sounds really unpleasant and very realistic.  All I know about life as a model comes from programmes such as Gok’s Fashion Fix, America’s Next Top Model and Project Runway but the world of fashion portrayed in the book sounds real enough.

There’s plenty of clues there, no we do know who the author is, as who wrote it;  Comoran is a non-magical Hagrid in size, strength and kindness, although he’s a lot sharper.  Familiar phrases, such as tears “leaking” crop up and death threats are sent on writing paper embellished with pictures of cute kittens, as if Dolores Umbridge had retired from the Ministry of Magic and set up a Writing Bureau (Threats R Us, perhaps?)

However, one thing – one massive thing – is missing; and that’s the gigantic, outrageous sense of sheer daftness and fun that pervaded the magical world.  There’s no Arthur Weasley collecting plugs, pink umbrellas, or tents that are bigger on the inside than the outside and furnished like a 1950’s flat with antimacassars and smelling of cats into the bargain.   Pity, really.  Because that sort of unique goofiness that JK Rowling made so believable and genuinely all her own, the thing she can do better than anyone else, probably is the magic that endeared Harry Potter to so many millions of readers.