Mark Haddon's Blog, page 22

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misfits / mill on the floss / firefly / the mawddach estuary

photo of mawddach estuary by benefit of hindsight under creative commons on flickr

together pictures

we don't it so much now, but once upon a time, i.e. a year or so ago, when alfie and i were sitting in cafes and he'd finished his apple juice and millionaire's shortbread we'd sometimes do what we called together pictures where we both had to draw simultaneously from either side of the notebook.

only when i was reading through the eyes of a child in the latest edition of tate etc. did i realise that together paintings have a short and honourable tradition...

 

this one's by pablo picasso, his c...

chocks away

i have been profoundly frightened of flying for a long time (about which i'm writing elsewhere at greater length). it's given me many undeserved greens points but it'sstopped me seeing places and people i really must see before i die. i also hate the idea of having my life restricted by fear. If i'm not going to fly i want it to be a choice not a relief. to which end i've been grabbing the bull by the horns, with a lot of help from the lovely people at aviatours and pilot flight training at k...

one small step

i went to see one small step last night at the burton taylor rooms at the oxford playhouse with my kids. i saw it last year and it's still hilarious and ingenious and unexpectedy moving. it's two guys in a lumber room dramatising the history of the space race using lampshades and cardboard tubes and tins of spam. it's billed as kids' theatre but i think the adults in the audience enjoyed it even more than the kids. not least because its an inspired demonstration of what theatre does best ...

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the red house

i did a very brief reading at the oxfam shop on marylebone high st this morning as part of the 24 hour oxfam bookfest readathon. i assumed it would be impolite to read from my own work but esther freud read from her as-yet-unpublished new novel so i reholstered my silas marner and read from the red house the novel i'm writing at the moment and which, fortuitously, i had in my bag for editing on the hoof. the traffic on the high st and the comings and goings of customers proved a good test of ...

bp & shell

if you don't already know about this then you should. bp got unlucky with deepwater horizon. shell have been doing this kind of thing for years in nigeria, with the help of the government and the army and leaving a lot more dead bodies en route.

here's a good article about the situation:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell

lumb bank

i've just finished teaching at arvon with william fiennes (see the first story link on the left and read the music room) at the lumb bank centre. teaching with will is always wonderful, we had fantastic students who produced some amazing pieces of writing and, on the final day, when the last tutorials were done, liz flanagan, one of the centre directors, drove us for a swim at lumb falls, which almost instantly became one of my favourite places. anywhere.

arvon @ lumb bank

www.williamfiennes.com

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swimming in the thames / the rise of the novel by ian watt / walking the dog by david hughes / longview estate darjeeling tea