Charlie Williams's Blog, page 19

Typeboard?

A computer with an old-skool typewriter keyboard? I love it. The idea is insane and yet brilliant. And this pic of the the innards shows why:


Can you appreciate that beautiful interface between analogue and digital? See, there is a future for organisms on this planet, and we won't necessarily be taken over by robots. We just have to work out the right ways to combine the strengths of the natural and synthetic. For example, meatcards.


(Cheers to DB for the link)

GUEST BLOGGER: ROYSTON BLAKE "I believe I can fly"

The FREE THE MANGEL ONE campaign has now hit 373 members, which is pretty fucking not bad at all. A few more and we'll be on quite good. But you know what level I'm aiming for, don't you, blokes and gentlemen? I'm aiming for top fucking banana.

Ain't there a plane called a 373? A Boing 373 or summat. I ain't been on a plane before but I have been on a helicopter. There was one up by the East Bloater Road once, a big red one parked near a recent road accident, by coincidence. Me and Finney were...

Blakey in the Graun

Sam Jordison has written this feature on Royston Blake's predicament in the Guardian books blog. It's a great piece and pretty topical about the state of publishing. Inevitably some of it is doomy and gloomy (especially in the comments section) but I feel that Royston Blake will rise again in book form. Perhaps as a zombie. I could call it Deadfolk! Oh...

Many thanks to Sam for championing the Royston Blake cause.

Rude book

In an idle moment I plugged "Mortacci", the title of my Italian Deadfolk translation, into google translate.

Here is the result. (And if you're in any doubt, click the audio button and hear it spoken aloud in a nice voice.)

And all the while I thought it meant "dead people". No wonder I never got invited to any lit festivals in Italy.

Guest blogger: ROYSTON BLAKE

I see the Writer has been spouting shite again. One mention of him in an article in one of the brainy papers and he's off down the pub, going on about how he's "at the vanguard of a new wave of young writers kicking against the cliches and producing ambitious, challenging, genre-bending works", or whatever. Well...

My dad used to have a mate who drove a Vanguard. And let me tell you, it was a fucking nail. All I remember about it was blue smoke out the back and dust up front as motor after mot...

Fun lovin' crime writers

Colin Bateman does an interesting piece in today's Guardian blog about funny crime novels - where they came from, what's going on with them now and why they are good things. And oh, look - I get a mention. Hey, people won't think that's why I'm linking the article here, will they?

I have always said you need laughs alongside your dark stuff to even up the balance. The deeper and darker you go, the bigger the laugh required. Then again, when you create an atmosphere of bad vibes it's easy to ge...

"Because wanker, probably"

I love automated translation. I love translation in general, and have a lot of respect for the guys and gals who turned Royston Blake's tales into other lingos. I'm not so keen when I find entire texts of those translations posted online, but it at least allows us to consider some possible improvements on the original text. Please turn your critical faculties up to 11 for this extract from the Russian version of Deadfolk (translated back into English via Google translate):

At home I put on my ...

Dying deadfolk

I recently heard that DEADFOLK has gone out of print. You can still pick up copies here and there but there is no longer a ready supply of it. And you know what that means, right? He's getting weaker.

Royston Blake is starting to fade away.

If FAGS AND LAGER and KING OF THE ROAD end up going the same way, poor old Blakey will be nothing more than a memory. "Royston Blake?" people will say in pubs up and down the country. "You know, that almost rings a bell but I can't quite... Nah, it's gone." ...

Inspired Lunacy

I'm in two minds about all these suggestions that Stairway to Hell is mad or preposterous - it all makes perfect sense as far as I'm concerned. But I'm not going to complain about this Booklist review for Stairway to Hell (which is out around now in the USA):

British bar singer Rik Suntan, winner of the local Pub Idol contest two years in a row, is quite confident that it's just a matter of getting the right break before he becomes an internationally renowned rock star. The fact that he's...

We're not indestructible

Rocky Balboa was a role model to a generation of teenage boys growing up in the 80s. From the humble southpaw slugger we learned how to cope with seemingly unbeatable opponents, what to have for breakfast and how to drive really slowly in a toy car. But most of all he showed us how to deal with existential angst: get in your Lamborghini and run a montage through your head: