Blog Archives - A Portfolio Life

A Portfolio Life

Wave at The Space Station this Christmas (UK)

22/12/2013

The International Space Station's making a couple of lovely passes over Britain this Christmas at a decent time to stand and stare - clouds permitting.

December 23rd 17:11 to 17:18 (roughly) virtually directly overhead in London going West to East, a bit lower in the southern sky the further north you are.

December 25th 17:11 to 17:18 (roughly) a bit lower in the southern sky over London and at 45 degrees as seen from Manchester.

Wave your festive greetings to Bullock and Clooney!

Find exact timings for your location here.

What's Shropshire?

20/12/2013

Further news comes through that Shropshire doesn't exist. As far as the media is concerned anyway. This is just confirmation to me. I have long suspected that Anne and I have slipped through a tear in the time and space continuum and live in a parallel universe where the sun never shines and it's 1954.

I've spoken about this before of course – as you can read here.

We now need to add Pointless to the list. For those of you who haven't seen it, Pointless is a rather clever quiz show on BBC early evenings. As part of preparation for the quiz 100 people are given 100 seconds to come up with answers to a question. For example they might be asked to name as many authors as they can who have won The Booker Prize.

The contestants, to win the big prize, then have to answer the same question. In this instance they'd have to name an author who has actually won the Booker Prize, but whom none of the 100 people have named – i.e. a Pointless answer, (which in this case would likely be Keri Hulme).

Anyway, the big question yesterday was to name a “pointless” local BBC Radio Station (!) The contestants failed, unluckily as it happens, for their guess at BBC Channel Islands was pretty good considering the mere handful of “pointless” answers included both BBC Jersey and BBC Guernsey. Also “pointless” was a couple of other bedraggled islands lost in the mists of time, or off the coast of Scotland, consisting of three people and some sheep clinging to rocks. Plus Gloucestershire.

And, of course, Shropshire. Quite literally pointless!

Tania Kindersley

19/12/2013

I'd never heard of Tania until I was on twitter looking for people to follow in the vague hope they'd follow me back. I stumbled across her profile early doors. She's a writer into horse racing and gambling. She had a link to her blog so I clicked, for naturally I don't follow just anyone (unless they say they follow back automatically obviously), and I thought to myself, my that's a good blog.

Here's a sample

I've still never read her books which I must rectify, if not the one with Sarah Vine for at heart I am an old-fashioned Marxist, albeit with corners so chamfered as to be a latter day sentimental socialist at best. I have googled her but that didn't tell me anything more than I could tell from her blog.

She's indubitably posh, which wasn't a crime last time I looked and, though she's a self-professed soft-wristed lefty liberal, I'd imagine she'd be much more at home with my Grammar School nemesis Andrew Sullivan than me. For that is how Britain works. Who cares? Not those of us who put niceness first.

The thing is, her blog posts are works of wonder. She writes about horses, about writing, and about her somewhat eccentric life on the margins just beautifully. Words spill from her, any roughness (and actually there really isn't any) only adding to the honesty and freshness. She keeps trying to grasp something that she glimpses occasionally from the corner of her eye, which she doesn't fully understand but which promises some sort of answer to a question she hasn't quite formulated. Like a poet.

Those who know me from my Facebook page will know that I believe Paul Evans's Country Diary reports from Wenlock Edge in The Guardian to be some of the best writing on this island today. Giles Coren's ridiculous restaurant reviews also. Books aren't everything. Tania completes the trilogy.

Still hasn't followed me back on twitter though...

Small World

19/12/2013

I'll be honest. In my dreams my book is now nestling on the shelves of Waterstone's. I go to Birmingham's mega-branch and spend all day mooching around. I shift copies into prime positions, make up my own “staff recommendation”, grab complete strangers by the arm, point at the front cover and say I wrote that. Once ejected I walk two hundred yards down the road to the second store and start all over again.

But that's because I'm an old fuddy-duddy who has always seen novels as books to be held and smelled and piled on top of each other on bedside tables. And it turns out I'm an even bigger sentimental fool than usual because the digital world is wonderful. It makes old-style publishing look slow and insular.

In just three days since publication, to my certain knowledge, people have bought our e-book in:

Johannesburg
Sydney
Melbourne
Ho Chi Minh City
Geneva (well Switzerland somewhere)
Chamonix
Paris
Malmo
Palm Springs

and God knows where else.

I find that mind-boggling...

What if your friends don't like your book?

17/12/2013

Ok, so finally it's publication day. Farewell Trip is up on Amazon etc ready for your perusal. Or in the words of one Karin Dixon:

WOO-FUCKING-HOO

There is one thing I haven't seen much advice on throughout this publication process. What about our friends, who will be the first purchasers of our magnus opus? Our friends are spread all over the world. People have been following our "journey" from places as various as Sydney, Melbourne, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Ho Chi Minh City, Paris and Harpenden. And then there's all the people I've worked with over the years. And the ones I went to college with over 30 years ago. What if, after all the fuss, our friends don't actually like our book? Well, frankly, I don't know, but here's what I've said to them on Facebook this morning.

Should you not enjoy the book, we still thank you for buying it. We're most grateful, but we do realise that some of you aren't going to like it much. And some of you will be a little embarrassed about that. Please don't be. I give up on books easily and for all manner of reasons. I can't get into the story; something annoys me about the set-up or the characters; or the type-face or the lack of chapters. Or I'm just not in the right frame of mind for it; or start reading something else; or, let's face it, because the book's shit. And it's not all about quality. I've been reading Moby Dick for 28 years and am currently on page 124.

So please don't worry about non-completion. Please don't feel the need to force some white lie upon us about how you enjoyed it. We're not youngsters standing on the threshold of life in need of encouragement. We're used to negative feedback. My poetry has been howling into a public void for thirty-five years

Much better to be honest, like the five people to whom we sent the very first draft of our very first chapter, as an initial road test. Two said they loved it, two went “meh” and one said “Oh God, what a pointless book. Why on earth would anyone read that?” And we still speak to her. Or, more accurately, I do. Sometimes. Well, once.

Seriously, we'd prefer that than awkward silence.

The Last Line of a Novel. Is it important?

13/12/2013

Our lovely Carina editor sent us through a copy of our book, exactly as it is to be e-published on Tuesday. It's a free copy to be distributed to bloggers and reviewers – in fact we are under strict instructions to give it to anyone willing to put a 5 star review up on Amazon in exchange. So anyone easily bribed, do let us know!

So, I spent a few hours reading my own book on Kindle, which is more than I have anyone else's book. And it seems to scrub up OK. I don't know if I've read and rewritten the start so many times that I'm blind to it, or whether it just took us 50 pages to find our voice and stride, but the book doesn't seem to get going until Paris. But then it definitely goes boom, or kapow, or at the very least a little bit whee and pop.

I was actually quite gripped by some of the later bits - Karin's stuff mainly, some of which I'm not entirely sure I'd read before. That's teamwork for you, the Twynam way. I even cried at a bit.

And so I reached the end thinking, oh well it may disappear without trace, but I'm pretty pleased with it. Woody Allen is famously dismissive of his films. He says they never come out how he saw them in his head. Broadway Danny Rose did, but little else. Well, I'd say this came out even better than I saw it in my head, sketching it out when walking on the Long Mynd with Anne about two years ago and for that Karin should be mighty proud.

The only thing is, I reached the end and they've missed out the very last line. I think a proof-reader has been over zealous. It is a strange line. The book still makes sense without it and I rather think that's how it may be published until or if we can rectify it. If it is, I'll share the proper last line exclusively here! Or run a competition so you can guess it.

It's a Wonderful Life, isn't it Jimmy?

11/12/2013

It's that time of year again. When some of us settle down for the annual viewing of It's a Wonderful Life. But is the film as uplifting as we're led to believe? Here's what I had to say about it in The Northern Line to Shropshire.

The obligatory annual screening of this Jimmy Stewart classic over, eyes wiped and tissues binned, I don't know if it's my imagination, or the passing of my own years, but the film gets blacker every time I watch it. I'm sure I used to cry at the goodness in the film - the rousing speech to stem the bank run; the love, the kindness, the redemption. Now when I watch I just see sacrifice.

Be careful what you wish for; be happy with your lot; angels get their wings but you'll never get to shake the dust of this crummy little town off your feet and see the world; face it, you ain't ever gonna lasso the moon.

Play Me a Memory...

10/12/2013

At college I had a pretty decent record collection for one so young. A punk/new wave/Motown/disco/hippy-fest.

In my final year I had money problems, plus had resolved to move to Seattle to live with my dad and, given that wherever I lay my hat was going to be home, I thought it expedient to flog said collection in order to fund beers for the days when I couldn't go to the Dalis Bar where I knew the barman and had my own bar stool situated right under the Pernod optic.

Anyway, last weekend some of my friends mentioned that they still owned some of my long lost treasured vinyl and it made me think of what records I actually missed in this digital world. Aztec Camera, Wah Heat and the Comsat Angels figured and today I read an interview in The Guardian with Tears for Fears who name-checked 'dalek i love you' and I thought yes – that's the album I miss most.

I sold it to a Belinda for I know not how few pennies, along with the 6 album box-set The Story of Motown which prefaced each song with a bit of an interview with the stars - “Smokey Robinson – at that time the world's greatest poet”, which I sold for a fiver. Or ten pints as it was then.

No-one wanted to buy my Patrik Fitzgerald collection, so that's what I'm left with. "We're just little fishes, swimming in a rising tide, small fry..."

Meeting Mike Leigh

8/12/2013

One of the things I love about London is the abundance of proper celebrities. You can hardly move around theatreland late afternoon without tripping over them. I once all but knocked over Helen Mirren and, in turning round to say sorry, bumped into Cherie Lunghi.

Last night Lampeter alumni gathered to discuss our Candy Crush strategies, our opinion of Man Utd's midfield, how much Louis Suarez resembles Bernie Winters, and just how much of my novel is based on fact - (my answer to all of them: not much).

We had booked a table at Mr Kong's, an old Chinatown favourite. As we marched in I noticed poor old Mike Leigh and his partner stood forgotten, waiting in the hallway for a table. For he is just a no-one who makes the odd film or two, whereas we were with a force of nature called Jo who swished past saying “We've booked, table for nine, yada yada yada....”

As I went past I felt obliged to make a joke about the situation. So I squeezed Mike Leigh's arm and said “Never mind, we must be proper celebrities.” in what I took to be a faux patronising piece of hilarity he'll probably incubate for a few years before suggesting it to Timothy Spall as a metaphor for London in what will come to be known as his masterpiece on queuing, provisionally entitled Chop Chop Suey.

Anyway, come the end of the night, emboldened on cheap wine and pork belly with yam hotpot, Anne and Mark cornered the maestro in a pincer movement and talked of their love for his films, oh you know wossname and thingummyjig, you know, that one with Bubbles from Absolutely Fabulous – oooh now that is a good show.

He seemed a very nice chap. Patient.

The Land of Lost Content

6/12/2013

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows
What are those blue remembered hills
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content
I see it shining plain
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

(AE Housman)

My favourite Housman lines as worn on a T-shirt in my book “The Northern Line to Shropshire”.

They are so resonant of Shropshire and of belonging and of loss and of the ramblings of an old man out of his time. But I always fail the poem, for I always read the “land of lost content” wrong. I seem unable to read it as content as in 'happy with one's lot'. I always read it as content as 'stuff we own'. In my book I turn this into a weak joke about losing stuff on my laptop.

So I am indebted to Christine Bleakley's ITV programme where she celebs around the counties of England. For I've just learned that in Craven Arms a very wise woman has opened a museum on the fripperies and oddments of a modern life and has called it, of course, The Land of Lost Content.

Perfick...