Irrepressible.info

An Amnesty International appeal, launched on Sunday, is calling on people who use the internet to sign a pledge supporting an end to internet censorship and oppression. Irrepressible.info is a web based campaign seeking the release of a number of prisoners of conscience, people who have been jailed for using the internet to voice their opinions. They are also calling on IT companies like Microsoft, Google and Yahoo to do more to protect people’s right to ‘seek and receive information and to express their peaceful beliefs online without fear or interference’.

People like Shi Tao. A Chinese journalist who is serving 10 years, doing forced labour in terrible conditions in Chishan prison. He emailed an American pro-democracy site about warnings from the Bejing news authority asking news outlet not to cover the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Shi Tao sent the email from his Yahoo account. A year later he was in court standing trial for ‘illegally providing state secrets to foreign entities’. Evidence provided by Yahoo’s Chinese partner was used to convict him.

Shi Tao’s wife now endures frequent bullying and interrogation by the authorities and her work place is demanding that she seek a divorce. His parents have also been watched and harassed at work and at home.

Although cases in China are currently receiving the highest profile there are similar abuses reported in Tunisia, Israel, Vietnam and Iran.

I am adding a badge to this site to show my support for this campaign. The issues of (real) freedom of speech, oppression and censorship are obvious and important.

But we can not have a two, three or four-tier internet either. I can’t believe that we can have a global economy, that we can force all the negatives of capitalist systems on the world but we can not do the same with the positives. The internet is a great thing and it is important that people are allowed equal access to it. Particularly as it is now bound to progress and development and will increasingly become a mechanism for people to participate in the global market place.

The internet is one of the few media where people, ordinary people, can act, ask and access equally. We should protect that right.

Imagine not being able to stand up and say that you disagree with something your government are doing or saying, that it offends you morally and ethically. Not being able to alert other people to the injustice and violence faced by so many people every day. In the 21st century.

Imagine not being able to say you think Ruth Kelly looks like a lesbian. Yesterday I used this blog as a minor force for evil. Today I restore the balance.

Also, PKblogs provides access to banned blogspot addresses in India, Pakistan, China and Iran.

Nan-o-ree-mo

I have signed up for this years’ National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo as Mork and Mindy nearly said. What on earth has possessed me to do this I shall never know but it is too late now – I am properly enthusiastic about it.

Beginning on 1 November, and not before, I have to write 50,000 words of a novel by 30 November. You can follow my progress here.

Relax – it’s only 1,666.66 words a day. Easy. I can fit that in between a job, a writers' group, a fledgling social life, sleeping, eating, being a better half, blogging and having a five month old baby. I foresee no issues with that.

I’m going to enter into the spirit of the thing and write without too much planning and rocket through a first draft as fast as possible. This is a good way to get me through the tough bit of starting and getting into a draft of a new novel.

You’ll not be able to read anything more than a 10,000 character extract, that’s around 1,600 words. So there will be no out of the blue book deals flying around to over-hype or envy.

Working title: Hot Pursuit.
Genre: Literary fiction, but only because the other options weren’t right and I didn’t want to put Other Genres in case people thought I was writing a cowboy pastiche. Hey, there's an idea.

I’m going to go and introduce myself in the forums shortly. See if I can’t make a complete arse of myself over there as well.

Then I’ll have to rustle up some kind of plot I expect. Oh hang on – literary fiction’s my genre. No plot needed.

Podcast # 1

Kindness overwhelms (still) young blogger

Crikey, this blogging is a marvellous wheeze. Shortly before nine am I post that I want the new Scissor Sisters CD. At quarter to three I receive a call from reception saying there is a package for me. At five to four I can no longer resist temptation and open package. Inside is the new Scissor Sisters CD and card signed by my most esteemed colleagues.

They are all gorgeous and I thank them. There might even be kisses.

I have just spent the last few minutes trying to think of something else I want but it’s been to no avail as I now feel as though I have everything.

Except a Suitable Coat.

The Beginner’s Guide to Being a Beginner Blogger by a Beginner

100th post. Ha [exclamation mark] That’ll learn all those teachers at school who said I had the attention span of a gnat. A whole hundred posts. Rather than waste it on some frivolous meandering about the mysterious reappearance of my mobile phone or telling you how I found a spider in my mash potato on Friday I shall provide an important public service and blog about blogging.

I am a beginner blogger and a bit helpless, hapless and hopeless. But, being objective, I have happened upon blogs less adept than this one so I’m going to forge ahead with The Beginner’s Guide to Being a Beginner Blogger by a Beginner. I have called upon Flashman Topside to hinder me in this mission, as he wants his own blog and may have some relevant questions. You may listen in as I attempt to share my pearls of wisdom with him. Or shitbits of shite as he called them. Shall we begin?

You’ve had a blog for some months now, how come you are still a beginner?
There are bloggers who are very well respected and very widely read. Note how they have all had blogs for eons and how they have gathered momentum over time. Seven months or so is not long in the world of blog. Although some people have a friend who has a very well respected very widely read blog and then they are all linked up and ready to go by the tenth post. But this is not the case for you as I don’t have a blog of this type and we are not friends. No matter how much your mother would like us to be.

You know that thing about how, if the earth had existed for a only day, life would have appeared in the sea at teatime and dinosaurs would have sat down to watch the ten o’clock news before mysteriously dying out and human beings have only been here for 3 seconds just in time for teleshopping to appear on every channel? Well in blogging terms I appeared in the last blink of an eye. So, I am a beginner blogger rather than a stalwart of the vanguard. And it’s only as you get more people interested in what you are doing that some of the other things become relevant, like managing feed and all that.

Also, I read some of these types of article and actually, thinking back, they weren’t that relevant to the absolute beginner because they were being written from the lofty perspective one acquires when sitting on triple figures visitors a minute and 3,000,000 inbound links. Although the last one I read was very good. And helpful. So there are exceptions. As always.

How do I get a bit of the Internet to call my very own then?
I just have a .blogspot.com at blogger because it is very easy and free. Lots of people on the message board seem to moan about it but I’ve never had any problems. It’s easy and free after all. Well, it’s a little bit taxing and free now I’m in beta but that’s my own fault; I tend to get over excited whenever presented with the word Upgrade. Anyway, you just sign up and then off you go. The Help Directory is very good. I read it all. Twice. If you know about CSS and things then you can really knock yourself out. But if you don’t it doesn’t matter.

The hardest thing is thinking of a name. My mate Crispy gave me mine. If it weren’t for him there wouldn’t be a blog. I'm sure you will join with me in saying thank you to Crispy.

Yeah. Thanks. Now, what am I supposed to put on my blog?
Put what you like on it. I don’t know. I like blogs where people write something about themselves and what they think about things. Although I’m not so interested in the sex blog people, or the people who over share about their emotional traumas or experiences of near death. But that’s just me. Some people, I suppose, find that fascinating and helpful. I expect you’ll end up with a blog similar to the ones you like. There are some specific types of blog, like photo ones or tech ones or ones which just have links to other things. It’s up to you.
What sort of blog do you think I should I have then?
One where there is no footage of you sitting around in your greying underpants shaking your bong wondering how it all fits together so marvellously. That is what YouTube is for, surely? You could be an Internet celebrity.

Oh, yes, because blogging can make you famous, can’t it?
No. It can’t. That is nonsensical. The easiest way to have a novel published is still to write one. Actually, the easiest way to have a novel published is to mention to a friend over dinner that you would like to write a novel, then they will speak to their senior management team at their publishing house and make it happen for you. You might even get it ghostwritten.

Also, while we are on the subject of fame and blogging, you would have to be pretty dense to lose your job because of your blog nowadays. Unless you wanted to, or you were sacked because of some other reason. The bubble has burst on that one, if there ever was a bubble. We must now await the backlash. Also, I would advise you to have a look at the photographs of all the people who have received publicity because of their blogs. None of them are gigantic half man half dog creatures, are they?

None of them are clumsy half woman half street urchin creatures either are they? You can be so hurtful sometimes.
Sorry.

How do you decide what you are going to post and what you aren’t?
There's a fine line between posting and not posting. You could sit around writing and writing, waiting for a great post. But the point is, I think, to post and not worry. The great post will come. Surely? I know, I know – still we wait.

In my day job I have to think about what I’m writing, and my other work, about which I procrastinate so expertly, is very planned and thought out. I like posting first draft stuff here because I don’t get an opportunity to do that anywhere else.

I have three imaginary readers. I try to write for them. I made them up so they are probably a bit odd and willing to indulge me in ways that real people, sadly, aren’t. But it's quite a useful thing to do.

How long should a post be?
Exactly the same length as a piece of string. Not a millimetre more, not a millimetre less. This post is about two metres longer than the piece of string.

How often?
Well, I post quite a lot but I’m thinking of only posting three days a week on the same days. It depends on what you like really. I used to read a blog where the guy only posted once a week but I lost interest. Do you see?

If you are a smoker, or have smoked, or done some other habitual things like always sitting in the same seat on the train or something – you’re probably going to be quite good at blogging regularly.

I supposed it’s important to make sure you’re spelling is right and your blog is not full of silly mistakes, yes?
Oh yes. That’s very important. I always always make sure I never ever make any mistakes silly or otherwise ever ever.

How can I get people to read my marvellous blog?
You can sign up for some directories and ping them. Pingoat is good for this and if you go there it will make everything clearer than I ever could. I get people coming from the Tube map over at London Bloggers and Brit Bloggers (but I haven’t managed to get the code up on the new site yet – sorry). Ask the (pin)goat.

Referring to someone else’s blog and providing a link is a good way of getting yourself out there. And writing about other people’s posts. I did these two things doubled the amount of daily visitors, for a brief time.

Word of warning: I think that it’s important to be genuine about these things though. It would be easy to write something about how, over at the very popular Squashed Birds Smell Bad, Dead Crow has written about road kill. But that’s not something I’m interested in at all. I would just be doing that to link up and get noticed by her and her massive audience. That is not only very mercenary but blatantly obvious. It’s not really in the spirit of the thing.

You can also do nothing but post. Some people arrive here because they’ve searched for something odd. I had a visitor who search for something like art hanging clothes line genitalia and I had about four camel toes. And one carrie anne moss camel toe. As though that would ever happen. I imagine that if you posted something (today) which was about how delegates at the Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth were able to attend fringe meetings where they could engage in anal sex with dwarves holding axes and large bottles of honey mead, then before proposing any new legislation they can visit a Georgian gimp who would teach them about oral hygiene through the medium of dance and booth tanning; then you might get a few hits.

How can I get people to come back and read me again?
Don’t ask me. I had three or four, or some other similar smallish number, leave comments saying they liked what they were reading. But then they don’t seem to come back again. I miss them but there you are. Maybe I went through a patch of boring posts or maybe they are busy. I don’t know. There are a lot of good blogs out there and only so much time to read them in.

I think it’s more important to make sure that your blog makes you happy and that you post what you like, than it is to have people pour praise upon you or have your hits counter go through the roof. There are few places in life you can just say what you want and no one can interrupt you. At least if you live in my house there are. Very very few. Not even the bathroom.

I did go through the obligatory statistic obsessed faze but we’ve got over that now. Haven’t we? Yes we have. Good. Yes. Good indeed.

All right. Calm down. I heard that you’re supposed to comment a lot on other people’s blogs, is this right?
According to all the other advice about blogging comment box whoring is a good way of getting people to visit your site. I think this is nonsense. Comment box whoring was once a good way of getting people to visit your site but now everyone is wise to it and it doesn’t work anymore.

There was, oh only a couple of weeks ago now, a lot of natter about commenting and should you reply as a matter of courtesy to new readers. I even joined in. Rather rashly. I now have a policy of replying to every comment. Unless it’s hilarious and then I delete it in a fit of jealousy and righteous outrage.

I, of course, don’t really have this problem because I hardly even get any comments and by replying to them all I automatically double the number I get. My, how easy it is to get all obsessed with statistics and popularity again.

I note with horror now that on some sites where I have commented (rarely and again, rashly) my details are remembered for next time. So when I read the comments now there’s every chance I might post a comment by accident. Currently, I’m too scared to read any comments at all. It’s a minefield, I tell you. A minefield.

Okay. Next question. It’s all about the linkage, isn’t it? How do I get lots of people to link to me?
Well, that’s how to get people to your site mostly. Although not totally. I think if people link to you that’s great, and a lovely compliment but you can’t make them do it. I can’t believe that some new bloggers have actually pestered others to get them to link to them. I wouldn’t expect anyone on my blogroll to link back to me just because I’ve linked to them. And vice versa. Although I am meaning to link to Popplestone and can’t because I can’t remember my blogroll password at the moment. Blogroll: another handy doobery dah.

Why are you always on that site meter page and why does it make you cry?
Those little bits of javascript that you can pop into your template so you know how many visitors you getting? Are evil. I would advise against getting one because all you’ll do is spend the whole day looking at your summary page whimpering and wondering why no one is visiting. Is there anything more soul destroying that clicking on ‘Who’s On’ and being told that ‘There have been no visitors to your site in the last hour’? Don't do it.

Anyway. I’m over this now. It’s a stage you have to go through. Like turning off your comments box.

There are stages?
Yes. We’ll do an update at 200 posts.

Okay, I’ll check my diary. What about the competition?
There is no competition. Unless you have a clone who has a blog and posts the same things you do. Otherwise how can you possibly compare?

I read somewhere that there are over 35.3 million blogs online. I think this is a lie because this morning Technorati said I was ranked 337,561 in the blogosphere and if there actually were 35.3 million I’d be somewhere around 35.29 million. Before you start, I love Technorati and will hear no ill of them.

Any more handy hints, oh wise beginner?
My best tip is to say to yourself regularly ‘Woo wee, it’s only a blog.’ And also ignore everything in the papers or on the radio about blogging, unless it is an actual proper blogger talking. Don’t look at other people’s site meters. I never have, I can’t imagine why you would want to, but apparently it can be profoundly upsetting.

If you could start your blog again what would you do differently?
I would post for three months, maybe longer, with no site meter and no comments box for a while. I think that would have profoundly improved the quality of my experience. That's all really. Ever onwards. Etc.

No really, how do I get people to read my blog and how can I get people to come back when they do?
I don’t know. Honestly. Luck?

You’ve put me off now.
Oh no [exclamation mark] don’t be put off. Do persevere. In four years you could have lots of readers and loonygroupies, at least I think that’s what they are called. You could be on the radio, in the paper, all sorts given time. I love having my little corner of the Internet and messing about with it, accidentally deleting it all and having to rescue it. It’s great. It’s much less dangerous than windsurfing after all.

Right, I’m going to start a blog and get loads of attention and be in the paper and on the radio within a year.
Or you could audition for Big Brother. It would take less brain power and far less commitment.

Welcome to blogger beta

This must be how Dorothy felt when she, rubbing the bump on her head, opened the door of her house to find herself newly arrived in Munchkinland, at the foot of the yellow brick road.

Yee-ouch.

I like jazz

If a novel is like a portentous symphony and modern journalism is the equivalent of frothy pop then short stories could be three minute blasts of anthemic rock. Surely then, chick lit is the smaltzy ballad and academic papers the yowling of sixties folk. If political speech writing is anaemic boyband harmonising and advertising copywriting five finger pieces for the beginner pianist, then blogging is jazz.

You listen for ages to the doodling, tooting trumpet, squawking and squealing away, seemingly oblivious to everything else. It goes on and on and then all of a sudden there is it; that great sequence. The killer riff. The minutes pass unnoticed.

Then it’s gone again.

And we listen to yet more of the doodling, the tooting, the squawking and squealing, waiting for the next hook to grab us.

Friday round up

Introduction
Friday’s post is becoming a bit of a summary covering many of the recent misfortunes to have befallen me, and the triumphs to have caught me unawares. So, although I am in danger of instituting a tradition, I shall crack on with the summary of where I am at or thereabouts for you.

Reading
I have finished the Bullet Trick. Hoorah. I am fully intending to write a measured and thoughtful review to make up for my previous petulance but I have shoved it on the bookshelf and each attempt to pick it up again results in an enormous wave of sorrow crashing down upon me, dashing me against the rocks of righteous indignation and feverish disappointment.

Televisual confusion
I was messing about with my camera last night and so didn’t plonk myself in front of the television until quarter to ten. I popped on BBC 1, even though I am Cross With The BBC At The Moment, and was most confused to find myself watching a docudrama where Tony Blair was extolling his own virtues as a God in a rather angsty fashion. Then, imagine my amazement, he confessed to having killed people and done all kinds of terrible things. Remarkable I thought. Then he, or perhaps it was Gordon or Claire, stuck a knife up through his chin and it made a noise exactly like when you crack Ice Magic with a spoon. At least I think that what happened with the knife and the chin. I have finely honed reflexes for that kind of thing so was already well under the sofa with my fingers over my ears and my thumbs in my eyes singing Yellow Submarine very loudly to avoid any TV gore induced trauma. Anyway, it transpired that it was not actually a sequel to The Deal but the same actor playing Nero, of the Roman Empire. I did wonder about the togas but thought that may be down to some strange Mandleson/ Campbell/ Blair Greco-Roman wrestling tournament. I think Martin Sheen is his name. He’s not related to Gloria Estefan either.

Football
We have discovered that the team that lost the final of the womens’ five-a-side football tournament had reached the final in the three previous years and so now feel less bad about the sound trouncing we received. Although I can’t even begin to talk about the winners yet. Bitches.

Annoying crazy people
The Mad Man Who Lives Up The Road has a new personality to add to the veritable post office queue he has already accumulated. I shall call her Fanny. She is very irritating with an incredibly loud high pitched voice and grave concerns about her job security. She fears the sack, she fears the sack, she fears the sack, she fears the sack. Perhaps Fanny would perform a little better at work if she didn’t spent most of her time walking up and down my street screeching. I preferred Clive the Librarian. He used to rearrange the shelves in the library and hide the Ruth Rendell’s in the back of the cookery section. I liked him. The library staff liked him less though he meant they had to do some Work. Heaven forfend.

Outrage
I inadvertently left Sad Little Clancy’s door unlocked for three nights and no one stole her, slept in her, pissed in her or threw rubbish in her. I am outraged. The Subaru up the road went like a hot cake. I think I will buy Sad Little Clancy a spoiler and a neon racing stripe.

Most importantly
Bambino Bamboo is four months old today. Happy sortofbirthday [exclamation mark] She’s doing lots of interesting things and being adorable but this is the round up post so there’ll be no more of that.

And there we are. Vaarwel, gentle reader.

Insert title here

I am terribly busy being both charming and erudite so am unable to magic you up a post today. You may like to provide your own post by using the handy template below. I will be back tomorrow to update you on the charm and the erudition.

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Friday: brought to you by the number 8

One
For some reason today I thought it would be appropriate if I just combed my hair with a breeze block, cleaned my teeth with some old dusty flock wallpaper and inflicted myself upon the world. I do apologise for my ramshackle appearance. I truly am a tumbling down former council house in human form.

Two
Someone asked me a very good question earlier. They came up to me and whispered in my ear; ‘Julianne Moore or Carrie Anne Moss?’

Hmmm. How well they know me.

Three
Why has Robin Williams made yet another spooky film, in the manner of One Hour Photo and Insomnia? I know he stopped the comedy when the drugs stopped working and went all sentimental, but spooky? I don’t like it.

Mind you, this could be like the time I got Bob Hoskins and Danny Devito mixed up and had some very trying conversations about The Long Good Friday. Who would I get Robin Williams mixed up with though? Maybe Kathy Bates.

Four
Damn you, Flashman. I wish we’d never mentioned the sex blog thing. Trugnugget says he’ll pay me £100 to post something really graphic as long as it’s true. Minzie says she’ll pay me £200 not to post it. But The Lovely Mrs Tashoka says ‘£500 in [my] pocket and [she’ll] give [me] something to write about to boot. I want to go and hide in the cupboard under the sink with the bleach.

On the other hand we really do need the money.

Five
Three people have asked me if I will please act like a grown up for once and get feed. Feed? Yes, feed. Or fucking feed as it seems to be called in some circles. So, I said; ‘Well, I will have to find out what the etiquette for that is and I will get back to you. Piss Midget.’ When I say ‘find out what the etiquette is’ I of course mean ‘find out what feed is, exactly’.

Six
If I’d known that M&Ms were offering a reward of 2 million M&Ms for the return of The Scream I’d have looked a bit harder. Instead of glancing around the living room briefly and going; ‘tD, have you seen my The Scream? I can’t find it. Have you moved it again?’ like I usually do. If I find out I’d accidentally kicked it under the sofa again I’m going to be livid.

Seven
Please, in the name of all that is decent and clean and lightly perfumed, let me finish The Bullet Trick soon. It is possibly the most tedious book I have ever read in my life and, yes, I have read a Fay Weldon novel in my time. How can you construct a thriller with absolutely no tension whatsoever? And they all said it was a thriller, not me. Also, please stop jumping around like that. Two pages; Berlin back to Glasgow – what is the point of that? Two pages? Besides I have no idea what you are talking about anymore because I am bored. I am on the verge of an exclamation mark and I think I already made it clear how I feel about those pernicious punctuants.

Having spat that, The Cutting Room is a terribly good book, though. I would recommend you read that as it is perhaps my favourite inch of a three foot bookshelf teaming with quality Scottish crime/noir novels.

Seven and a half
Shut up Fay Weldon, or it’s the glue factory for you, my love.

Eight
When I recall who it was that put Windmills of Your Mind in my head they are in for some severe discomfiture. I have never experienced such a complex and distracting earworm in my entire life. And I once had Shine on You Crazy Diamond in there for a week so I know of what I moan. Dang Dang Dang Dowwwww. I’ve had to find out the Windmill lyrics because the doodling noise was driving me insane.

Aw, crappla. Now they’re both in there.

Like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning, on an ever-spinning reel, as the images unwind, like the circles that you find, in the Dang Dang Dang of Your Dowwww.

Make it stop.

InFrequently Asked Questions

Hello, and welcome. I have enlisted the help of Flashman Topside to interview me for my InFrequently Asked Questions. I don’t know Flashman Topside from Adam. Unless Adam is wearing a name badge, then I think even I could work it out.

What is your fantasy Top of the Pops episode (six live appearances and what’s number one)?
Nirvana - A Hazy Shade of Winter
Pet Shop Boys and Dusty Springfield - I Knew Him So Well
The Cure – A Spoonful of Sugar
Madonna – Sympathy for the Devil
Jimi Hendrix – Welcome to the Jungle
They Might Be Giants feat. Patti Smith - Killer Queen

Number one in that particular chart I think would be a David Bowie double A side with Somewhere Over the Rainbow and Unfinished Sympathy.

Is Froosh Bamboo your real name?
Why, yes, it is. Okay, no. A great shame. I might have it changed by deed poll. Although tD would kill me.

Who is tD?
The Divinity is my civil partner. When will we think of a better way of putting that? We’ve been together for so long it makes me seem really old. Even though I’m actually a spring chicken. I think she despairs of my blog and wishes that I would concentrate on writing my next novel or moving the first one out of the bottom drawer so she can fill it with nice brightly coloured stationary. Mmmmm. Maybe I will. She would actually just prefer me to get a job that doesn’t pay voluntary sector wages but then I’d have to work in the private sector. For The Man. Shudder.

So, you are a lady. And tD is a lady. But you have a baby - I’m confused.
By what?

The amount of ladies and lack of a man.
Mmmm?

You’re not prepared to engage with this at all, are you?
Nope. You may like to grow up and join the rest of us in the 21st century.

Okay, moody. Brief autobiography of the Froosh, please.
Born. In Northampton. Grew and grew and grew. Went to school. Realised nobody likes the kid who puts their hand up all the time. Stopped putting hand up. Became smart arsed problem child. Got up one morning made toast for breakfast, burnt toast, saw pattern in scorch mark in shape of Jeanette Winterson’s face, considered this sign, embraced gayness. Ninth birthday. Grew some more. Later, joined youth theatre. Went to university and studied drama, hated it. Moved to London. Did Masters degree in performance studies, hated it. Met tD. Wrote for theatre, hated it. Penny dropped. Adopted zen-like attitude of calm and mellowness and stayed away from theatres. Started novel. Got married. Started blog. Finished novel. Had baby. Put novel in bottom drawer. Wrote this post. Et voila.

You seem to fall over a lot. Are you really that clumsy?
I am an extraordinarily graceful woman. Like a very elegant gazelle. It’s just that some pieces of furniture, some pavements and some pairs of shoes seem to be out to get me. That’s all. Also, sometimes all the blood rushes to my brain and I can’t retain control of some of my limbs. I would rather it was the limbs than the bladder. As my grandmother used to say it’s better to fall over then piss yourself.

Are you another blogger trying to get a book deal?
No, and anyway things like that don’t happen to me or to the overwhelming majority of the billions of pople with blogs. That’s a stupid reason to have a blog. All right, Mr Paxman? Also, why is it not acceptable to just have a blog and be happy with that? I like writing and having a couple of people read it. That is enough. I have a beaten up 1989 Nissan Micra (hello, foxy AA lady) and I have no desire to get a shiny 4x4. It’s that kind of thing. Expect I am in no way saying that my blog is a banger and a book deal is a brand new expensive child killing vehicle. Oh, wait. Maybe I am. I like bangers. Next.

You’ve got all moody again.
Sorry.

So, what’s with the squirrels? Do you hate them?
No. I really like them. They are most entertaining. It also amusing me that one of the Bambino Bamboo’s first word will be probably be an attempt at ‘squirrel’. Skwiiiiil, I expect. I also think that the grey squirrel done kilt them poor widdle wed squirrels argument is bollocks. Humans are the most murderous species on earth so let’s move it out of the glass house, people. The squirrels are more popular than I am. Particularly Bastard. I just don’t get it.

Did they really kill the Prime Minister and replace him with a guy called Hilary?
I’m not allowed to talk about it while the court case is ongoing.

Are you really the world’s worst proof-reader though?
Ph yes.

Your boss has a blog, right?
Oh yes, and if you don’t visit it I’ll get grief. Never mind, I think the ink will be dry on my p45 soon. And don’t call him that, please, it scares me.

Do you really like your job?
I do actually although I think, as with all places of work, the people make it. To be honest I’d rather sit in an impossibly tall ivory tower writing books but I can’t seem to get my finger out of my arse. At least this way I can tell people I’m an editor without technically lying.

Why isn’t this a sex blog? I think I’d like it to be.
I don’t know. I'm too shy. I could tell you about how difficult it is to have sex in the same room as a lightly sleeping two month old baby. And probably immoral. Oh dear, I have never giggled so much in my entire life. Suffice to say we woke her up. See, I’m not good at the sexblogging. I missed the hot girlie action bit out. Also, too much with the giggling. Sorry about that.

What are your five favourite books?
I don’t know. I don’t have five favourite books. I like lots of books. Books are good. I love them. Etc.

You’ve kind of lost interest now, haven’t you?
I think we all have.

Damn. I was enjoying myself.
I’m glad someone was.

Shut up. You're much more grumpy in real life.
Don’t tell me to shut up. It’s my blog.

Sorry.
That’s okay.

Okay.
Okay.

You hang up.
No, you hang up.

No, you hang up.
No you.

You.
On three.

Okay.
One. Two. Thr -.

I hate you, Froosh Bamboo.

Commentary

I am new to having my own blog, although I have been reading other people blogs for ages so you’d think I’d have picked up a few tricks along the way. It seems to me that comments are a blessing and a curse. Like a site meter – the crack cocaine of blogging.

Troubled Diva has written about comment box etiquette, namely should you reply to the comment of new commenter as a matter of comment courtesy. You should go and read it, if you haven’t already. I nearly left a comment but then I was sore afraid, cracked under the pressure and ran away making that funny noise I make sometimes.

Someone once moaned because I didn’t reply to their comment and I told them that I don’t really have a policy of replying to them and please could they not give me a hard time because I had a hangover and felt fragile. I often don’t reply because I have very witty and amusing readers and the comment is too damn funny and to reply would be to invite humiliation. Also, I suspect I know most of the people who leave comments for me. I dread welcoming a new commenter and then, a couple of minutes later, hearing a snort of derision from the other end of the office.

Leaving comments is, apparently, a great way for a new blogger to get visitors. It’s practically the number one helpful hint you get when you start out. I think this is called whoring, but I might have gotten confused about that. I imagine the best place to whore yourself about is a good blog that you like reading; a busy one that gets a lot of visitors (who aren’t all good friends of the blogger).

But I think that those established bloggers are scary. Particularly if they are very, very good and have lots of readers and go on the radio. For example. It reminds me of those terrible days at school when I would follow my Dad’s ‘advice’ and introduce myself to some new kids in a futile attempt to make some friends. Invariably, they would look at me for a long, long time and then laugh and point, laugh and point and then laugh some more. So I often click on the leave-a-comment-link and hover over my keyboard and then bottle it. Particularly if there’s an enormous chain of witty, insightful comments from people I’ve actually heard of.

It’s like being in the ladies at China White and not daring to come out of the cubicle because two members of Girls Aloud and the sex slave trafficker one from Bad Girls are trowelling on their makeup at the mirror. Except with more class and better grammar.

Although I’m not speaking from experience, and I did leave a comment at the fabulous Naked Blog, mostly because I got two thousand times more hits than I usually get because [*presumption use of first name alert*] Peter mentioned me on his blog and I was giddy with joy. He did reply to my inane comment and I actually fell over. I sustained some mild chaffing to my elbow but was otherwise unscathed, thank you for asking.

What was my point? Oh yes; I’m too chicken to leave comments most of the time so if I do and I get a ‘hello and welcome’ it’s like the opposite of stealing my lunch money and ripping the badge of my blazer. But your comments box is not all about me, right? My comments box is all about me.

Leave me a comment now or I will be sad.

I wrote this post. Myself.

Just when I thought popbitch had gone a bit stale and, besides, was beneath someone with my parental responsibilities they rock up with this awesome blind item:

Which trendy novelist's last two books are rumoured to have been ghost-written?

Please, please, please let it be true and let it be you know who. I’ve crossed my fingers so hard I think the index one snapped.

I’m too scared to look.

You got here how?

I have a little notepad document called blog (I know, boundless imagination) and in this I put all the things I think I would like to blog about and then can’t be bothered, or forget about or think better of. I like the notepad action because all the other facilities designed to do this are too exciting and I get distracted by all the pretty colours and things to click.

I like to have a little look through blog.txt periodically for ‘inspiration’. I was scrolling through it going ‘oh, that would have been good,’ or ‘oh, I remember that,’ or ‘damn, should have written about that’ and then I came across this:

picture genitalia hanging on clothesline art

Huh?

Almost worth an exclamation mark, I thought.

I pondered this for a while then remembered; someone googled this and arrived here. How bizarre. I’ve never mentioned a washing line never mind engaged in the kind of strange, possibly sordid activity they suggest. I’m too scared to look at the results and see what else is there.

I hope they are not one of my (two? three?) regular readers. How embarrassing. Which one is it? It’s worse than a sex blog or something. When they visit I’ll be all shy and unable to look them in the face. Perverts.

Anyway, the very moment I have finished with this I’m going to open my little notepad page and write ‘Dessert Allsorts’. Because I have got a bag to sample and I will be blogging my verdict if a) I remember and b) they are interesting enough to have a verdict about. They might be a bit ‘meh’. Fingers crossed gentle reader, fingers crossed.

Update (15:22): They are horrible. Horrible to the point where I would described them as evil. Particularly the strawberry pie and strawberry cheesecake ones. Vomitous. I am outraged. Mind you, the smell that greets you as you open the bag is a bit of a giveway. Sadly, I can't think of the words to describe it - only noises I don't know how to spell. That's all. I thank you.

Not a book review (mighty long though)

I’ve taken the risky step of re-reading a book I loved when I was young and innocent and had hopes for my future. Always a very dangerous thing to do. What would happen if I didn’t like it? Would that mean that all the other books liked then are also rubbish? Would it mean that my taste is a fickle, fickle thing and not to be trusted? Or that when I was a teenager I was a complete muppet? The very thought.

I warmed up for this epic endeavour with a re-read of Sarah Waters’ Affinity which I didn’t like too much the first time round because the end is like being smacked very very hard in the face with a gravel encrusted shovel. And not in a nice way, like the twist halfway through Fingersmith, either. Affinity is a little less painful the second time round, but then most things are.

I’m supposed to be struggling through The Bullet Trick by Louise Welsh and I’m not enjoying it so much that I’m prepared to fully commit to it, but I’m not hating so much that I can dump it and walk away feigning indifference and swearing never to return its calls. So, I’ve put it to one side for a bit...

..And picked up the book in question: Hemingway’s The Garden of Eden. I had to go and buy myself another copy because I lent my careworn original to someone and can’t remember who. I do remember being almost violent in my recommendation of it so they probably took it away from me for my own good.

I first read it when I was about 17. Mainly (by this I mean solely) because it had the words ‘…a young husband and wife who both fall in love with the same woman…’ and when you’re 17 and live in a small village outside a claustrophobic, hicky little town people pass at speed on the M1 those words are rarely found on the back of a book in WHSmiths and therefore to be pounced upon.

So, the other evening I sat myself down, on the floor, in a semi darkened room and tentatively read the first couple of pages. Then I had a glass of wine. I read on. It’s still good.

The relief.

Hemingway worked on it whenever the mood took him (I know that feeling) between 1946 and 1961. I’m sure he would have liked to have worked on it more but he died. Nice excuse Ernesto. So, it’s not finished which lends it a kind of ambiguity that really suits the book. There’s also some controversy about the extent to which is it actually a Hemingway novel, given that the original manuscript was over 1,500 pages long and the book in my hands only has 247 pages, all of them soiled by the publisher’s blue pen. Again, this really works for me. It’s very rough and very lean. It was finally published in 1986, provoking a frenzy of sorts.

There's also a funny story about him appearing with his hair dyed red whilst he was writing it. Just for a couple of days, you understand. He tried it. He didn't like it. Fair enough.

I like to think I am ambivalent about Hemingway, him being so macho and abusive and all, and then I think about what he wrote and find myself going ‘yeah, I like that’ and ‘oh, yes, that’s good too.’ Also, Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises has the most fantastic paragraph in it:

‘The fiesta was really started. It kept up day and night for seven days. The dancing kept up, the drinking kept up, the noise went on. The things that happened could only have happened during the fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences. It seemed out of place to think of consequences during the fiesta. All during the fiesta you had the feeling, even when it was quiet, that you had to shout any remark to make it heard. It was the same feeling for any action. It was the fiesta and it was on for seven days.’

I’m also a little in love with Lady Brett Ashley. A little. Who am I kidding?

Of drawers and other demons

At last. I have finally joined that group of illustrious, glorious writers who have that bad first novel secreted away in the back of a deep dark drawer. It’s been hard work and a long haul but I got there in the end. I knew I could do it.

When I think back over all the hours spent creating two dimensional characters (so tedious and inert that it was a race between them and the reader to see who would succumb to a coma first), gratuitous grandiose descriptions of the minutiae of life (including skirting boards, tile grout, scabs and nasal hair) and dawdling plot development (not a question of what will happen but will something happen) it is with an enormous sense of pride.

Remember the bloodshot eyes, the aching wrists and the protesting brain; drained of imagination and creativity but persevering because practice makes perfect? And there was all that revising, rewriting, revising, rewriting, revising, rewriting and revising again. The hundreds of printer cartridges, the acres of paper, the notebooks, the research, the tragic loss of the favoured pen, the writers’ groups, the feedback, the tantrums.

Oh, the dizzying highs and the crushing lows.

Oh, the humanity.

Oh, the sheer joy of shutting it away in a drawer.

Damn, it feels good to get that one under my belt. I’d burn it but in this weather the whole of NW2 would probably catch light. I suppose this way I always have something to wedge under the leg of wobbly furniture.

If I ever dare take it out of the drawer.

I think I can hear it whispering in the middle of the night, you know.

Mayhem in Marylebone

Lady with huge glasses: Why are these chairs lined up like this?
Me: They’re for the people reading.
Lady with huge glasses: I see. It’s decided before hand is it?
Me: Well, yes. We like to at least look like we know what we're doing.
Lady with huge glasses: Oh right.
[long pause]
Lady with huge glasses: I’ll sit here then.
Me: Good idea. Front row seat.
Man with plastic bags: Hello, you’re a new one.
Me: Yes.
Man with plastic bags: What are you doing here?
Me: I’m reading tonight.
Lady with huge glasses: Yes, it’s all been decided.
Man with plastic bags: You’re a reader?
Me: Yes.
Man with plastic bags: I’m a writer.
Me: Right. That’s good.
[long pause]
Man with plastic bags: Why are these chairs lined up like this?

They had no idea we were coming. They were only there for their writers group. They thought we were only there for the reading group and that we were in the wrong room. Which, in so many ways, I guess we were.

Thank you, though, to the five members of the Westminster Writers Group who sat and listened to us trot out our stories. No thanks though to the muppets who didn’t tell anyone we were coming. This never happens to Jeffrey Archer you know.

The Froosh - Live

Tonight I will be at the Shepherds Bush library reading a new short story as part of the Westwords literary festival. We’ll be crossing our fingers and hoping that this time there are more listeners than readers (almost Willesden Green), and that we’ll sell more than six copies of the Monkey’s Typewriter (Ealing). I’ll be hoping that stinky man with the dog on a dirty bit of string does not return.

It’s free, it starts at 7pm and the telly’s rubbish on a Wednesday. Crowds will flock surely?

After that it will be a case of Harrow, Ealing, Willesden Green and Shepherds Bush down – Marylebone and Kensington to go. And then I’ll be sad.