Carol Hedges's Blog, page 34

Water, Water Everywhere!

River Lea at Batford, Harpenden, flooding into the leat (courtesy of Natalie Edwards)
It seems never ending. This time last year we were all up to our knees in snow, and I got frostbite trying to back a borrowed transit out of a tight space (you can read all about it here) Now we are all being flooded by endless rain, and although we are not seeing devastation anything like other parts of the country, we are seeing areas of land covered with water that have not been before.

The area above (River Lea flooding into the leat at Batford) is just a hop and a jump from a run down industrial estate that a local developer wants to build on (the same developer that will build on Westfield allotments if planning permission is ever granted, remember this?) Local people, in a laughable ''consultation process'', suggested some of the things they'd like to see if planning permission were granted. A surgery, a chemist, a community meeting point, a post office and a cafe being high on their bucket-list. Bless. Of course the developer has rejected this, because, let's face it, it won't generate enough profit, and instead has put in for offices, flats and a paltry amount of ''affordable housing''.

The Environmental Agency has now designated the whole locality an area of high flooding risk (see pic, they're not wrong). The developer has insisted they will put in mitigation strategies. Which, translated into reality means that at some point, they will go back to the council and say that the cost of the strategies is so high that they won't be able to build the ''affordable'' houses after all. That's how it works. And the Town Council, which seems to be in thrall to its own arrogance as well as to any large developer ... will roll over and let them renege on the agreement. That is also how it works.

And the whole area will continue to flood. But who cares? Money will have been made. No face will have been lost. That's what's important to the Tory mindset, seemingly. I have been sickened by the pictures of terrified farm animals being herded into lorries and driven away on the Somerset levels. More sickening still is the ''blame game'' now being played by the same government ministers who cut the flood defence budget, took money away from the Environment Agency, reduced staffing levels, denied climate change was a real prospect, sold off the dredging equipment, and now are finger pointing like the heartless uncaring offspring of unwed mothers that they are.

It should never be forgotten that this government also relaxed the planning laws in the face of severe pressure from the building lobby, making it easier for ruthless greedy developers to build upon flood plains. And urban green spaces. The one I'm trying to defend has been happily soaking up the rain like nobody's business, so we only suffered some flooding behind my house, but it will contribute considerably to local flooding if/when it is entirely tarmacked over. We look forward with dread to Winters of sandbags and misery.

The climate may change, the Tory mindset at all levels does not.

How (not) to Plan a Novel

Picture courtesy of Jonathon Fetcher @JonGardener
Whatever we write, be it short story, play, novel or poem, we all go through the same initial process: Planning. There are more ways of planning a piece of writing than there are pieces of writing - please read on quickly as I'm not sure this analogy works.

It is said you are either a ''planner'' or a ''pantster''. As the world's weirdest combination of the two (more anon) I don't think I am in the slightest degree qualified to lay down the law on the Hows and How Nots. Nevertheless, given that my lack of expertise has never stopped me piling in and sharing my ignorance, and several people who've read Diamonds & Dust  have asked me how I went about it, here's what I do:

Thinking: Every book I've ever written has started in the same place. Inside my head. I spend an inordinate amount of time before starting, and during the writing process just mulling over ideas for story development, or characters. Many of them will be discarded. Sometimes I do this lying on my bed, sometimes I go for a walk, sometimes I carry the story around whatever I'm doing. But however it happens, nothing begins without a lot of thinking taking place. No notes are made at this stage. The thinking will recur regularly right throughout the writing process.

After a lot of cogitation, I progress on to:

Sketching: This is where I might make a few notes on paper. More likely I will write up small sections of the book, or small pieces of dialogue that I quite like. I know the names of the main characters (secondary ones get named as they appear). At this stage I usually have a couple of ''pages'' at the end of a file named ''new book'' with phrases or descriptions that I think I might incorporate.

When I think I know, very roughly, what I might want to say, I progress to

Researching: For Diamonds & Dust I visited London and took pictures of the areas I thought I wanted to use. I went online and searched for original documents (there are loads on various Victorian sites). I transferred the entire contents of 3 local libraries' Victorian history section to my TBR pile (rotating as necessary). And I read every novel written in the period that I could -- frequently skimming to get a sense of it.

At this stage, I have a couple of random pages of notes, some online, a pile of downloaded articles, and books with bits of paper and bus tickets poking out of them. (Jon, who writes sci-fi, watches films and documentaries and reads sci-fi books). Again, researching is not a finite process and will change as I write and need to find out different things.

And now, I start:

Writing: I always do this the same way. I write the end. Then I write the opening section. (Not alone in this: Jon also writes the end first as he likes to know where he's going) Then I write a bit more of the opening ... a bit more of the end. Then I kind of join them up. Yup. Weird. And AT NO STAGE do I ever have a clear idea of the overall structure of the book or what is going to happen next. It's like fast downhill skiing in the dark.


No serious pre-plotting is ever done. None. No story arcs. No narrative graphs. No cards files. Nothing. The story evolves as I write it. And I write in short episodic sections, rather than chapters, tracking the story through a host of different characters. It's a spirally way of doing it rather than a linear one. I think it makes the story far more pacy and exciting - certainly for me as the writer, although it is sometimes like herding cats as bits of plot wonder off into the long grass and have to be rescued.

As I write, I also revise in the light of the direction the story is taking. The whole thing takes about a year. And then I have to go back and edit. So that's me. Chaos and madness. How do you plan ....?


If you'd like to read a free sample of Diamonds&Dust, A Victorian Murder Mystery, you can do so here. US readers can do so here.

THE PINK SOFA welcomes writer Lizzie Lamb

The PINK SOFA is truly delighted to welcome talented, funny and parrot-owning writer Lizzie Lamb. I met Lizzie for the first time a couple of years ago at a meeting of the RNA London Chapter. I was about to launch my ebook Jigsaw Pieces, and she was about to launch Tall,Dark & Kilted. Time has been good to both of us: Lizzie is now working on her third novel and it is a real joy to watch her rise to literary prominence. 
Having missed Burns Night, and not wishing to cause offence to the Pink Sofa's per haggis, Harris, there are tartan-iced cupcakes and frothy coffee on the coffee table. So, Lizzie over to you ....

ON YOUR MARKS, GET SET - GO . . .
or, how I became an indie author without the aid of a safety net
In July 2012, I formed The New Romantics 4 with three other writers.  Coining the phrase: ‘sisters doing it for themselves’, we published our novels on Amazon and Create Space. Our novels had been through the Romantics Novelists’ Association critique system and we felt they were good to go, so we lit the blue touch paper and stood well back. Three months later, after mastering the intricacies of ITIN forms, W8-BEN, and how to format and upload our novels for Kindle (and as a Create Space paperback), I finally held Tall, Dark and Kilted in my sticky mitts in (October 2012).
Fast forward to November 2013 and the publication of Boot Camp Bride. Two novels in a year, I hear you say? If it’s that easy, I think I’ll have a go. Well, concentrate, because here comes the science bit - how to create a market for your books from a standing start.
Luckily, I’d been a Facebook since 2008 and had friends who were either published authors or avid readers. When I came out of the closet and said: ‘My name’s Lizzie and I am a writer,’ they were supportive. I tried my best not to swamp them with posts all about writing - the parrot (of whom more, later) comes in very handy in that respect. In January 2013 I established Lizzie Lamb - writer page on Facebook and concentrated my ‘writerly news’ there, but there is of course some overlap. I also joined numerous Facebook sub-groups: Chick Lit Goddesses/Writers on the Same Page/ Write on Girls etc to promote myself.   I already had a Twitter account and, after publication, I started to post daily about my writing, making sure I interspersed promotion with more chatty, user-friendly stuff. I started to follow (and be followed by) more writers and now have a daily retweeting regime on a quid pro quo basis. That seems to work. Through twitter interactions, I have acquired lots of lovely readers who have followed me onto Facebook and become friends. 
As I got into the flow of promoting myself and my books, I started to think about having a website. The New Romantics 4 paid Nettie Thompson of Meldrum Media to create a website for us; then she created an individual website for me I’m starting to use more regularly since publishing Boot Camp Bride and have recently added FIRST PERSON SINGULAR where I will invite well-known authors to talk about their work.
Believing that I had established my credentials with Tall, Dark and Kilted, I contacted book bloggers, asking to be featured on their sites. So far, no one has refused! If you want to learn more about the blogs I’ve been featured on/book blogging sites, check out my pinterestboard.
Carol, you asked me, ‘how often do I promo.’ The answer has to be ‘most of the time’. But I try and promo on different sites on different days so that people don’t get sick of seeing my name pop up (again). I also blog for another group of indie writers The Famous Five Plus. Check out a postI wrote back in March about this very subject. On top of promoting, there’s always the next book to write. I didn’t say it would be easy, did I?
My advice to any one who is thinking of publishing a novel is to get the systems (Facebook, Twitter, blog, Pinterest etc) in place before you finish the book. Read other authors, write reviews for their books, read blog posts and comment on them - in short, build up your persona as an author who ‘gives’ as well as ‘takes’.
What else? Oh yes, having a fabulously understanding husband and a mad, talking parrot called Jasper. Jasper Parrot - geddit? He’s there to shout: BREAKFAST READY, WHAT YOU DOING? and I WANNA A CHOCOLATE BISCUIT, among other things. He has quite a repertoire.  When I leave him alone for too long he calls out: COME ON MUMMY! pulling me out of my  dream world and making me give him attention. Thus, he saves me from rounded shoulders, DVT and writers’ pallor. I’ve promised him a starring role in my next rom com ~ Scotch on the Rocks. Watch this space.
Meanwhile . . . here’s a bit about my current book, BOOT CAMP BRIDE -
Charlee Montague is an up-for-anything rookie reporter desperate for her big break. She dreams of something, anything, which will take her away from the daily grind at celebrity-driven magazine What’cha!  When she is sent undercover to a boot camp for brides on the windswept Norfolkmarshes, it seems as if all her Christmases have come at once. Posing as a blushing bride-to-be, Charlee has to get the skinny on supermodel Anastasia Markova and her oligarch Russian boyfriend. However, every rookie needs a more experienced partner as backup and Charlee is no exception. At her side (posing as her fiancé), is award winning photographer Rafael Ffinch. World-weary Rafa has recently survived a kidnap attempt in Colombia and is no mood to cut inexperienced Charlee any slack. Furthermore, he makes it plain at the outset of their assignment that there is no room for love in his complicated life. Once the investigation is over, their partnership and fake engagement will be terminated.             From the moment she sets foot in the boot camp Charlee senses that there is more to the simple ‘dish-the-dirt-on-the-A-list model’ story she’s been sent to cover. Journalistic antennae twitching, Charlee carries out an investigation of her own. What's the real reason behind Ffinch's interest in super model Anastasia and her shady Russian fiancé? How is it connected to Rafa’s kidnap in Colombia? In setting out to uncover the truth, Charlee uncovers yet more secrets and puts herself in danger.            And, as the investigation draws to a close, Charlee is faced with a dilemma - will she be able to keep her promise, hand back the engagement ring and walk out of Rafa’s life without a backward glance?

Boot Camp Bride - Romance and Intrigue on the Norfolkmarshes - November 2013http://t.co/XSXdFBgIts
Tall, Dark and Kilted - Notting Hill Meets Monarch of the Glen - 2012 http://t.co/eobg1qn110

Life on a Plate

In 2013, we discovered that horse meat, sometimes as high as 80%, had been added to our food. People were shocked and outraged. Cheap burgers and meat products were removed from supermarket shelves and even the 'reputable' supermarkets found they were not immune from the scandal as expensive ready meals were tested and found to contain meat from more than one animal.

None of these products would have harmed or killed us outright - indeed in many countries, horses are slaughtered for the table. It was the deception, and the realization that we had less control over the contents of what we put on our plate that caused such anxiety.

In Victorian times, food was adulterated to a far more dangerous extent. There was no Food Standards Agency, no Inspectors to discover and prosecute the offenders. Reading what was found in some everyday foodstuffs, I am amazed that people survived as long as they did! (And that's apart from the lack of universal refrigeration which made meat go ''off'' very quickly in the Summer months).

OK, those with weak stomachs .... do not read on.

* Sulphate of iron was added to tea and beer.

* Wine and cider both contained lead.

* Milk was frequently adulterated with chalk and watered down.

* Coffee was mixed with acorns.

* Sugar was mixed with sand.

* Gloucester cheese had red lead added to give it that distinctive colour.

* Butter, bread and gin all contained copper.

* Red lead was also used to colour red sweets.

Like today, street food played a large part in the Victorian diet. In 'Diamonds & Dust' I write about an elderly couple who ran a coffee stall. There were lots of these all over London as most offices and places of business did not have a canteen. As well as coffee, they sold bread and butter and ham sandwiches, which were a Victorian favourite. Amazingly there were whole stalls devoted entirely to ham sandwiches. Street stalls also sold soup and baked potatoes.

Seasonal food appeared on the streets as the year progressed. Watercress, strawberries and cherries were often sold by small girls, who turned up at Covent Garden in the very early morning to buy them. Muffins were sold by muffin men who rang their bells to announce their presence. Anybody apart from me remember the children's song: ''Have you heard the Muffin man ...who lives down Drury Lane''? Roast chestnuts were sold in paper twists off a brazier in the colder weather, as was cat's meat ...which was sometimes bought for human consumption as it was cheaper than butcher's meat.

In 1860, the government passed the Food and Drugs Act in an attempt to stamp out widespread food adulteration, but although the quality of food gradually improved, there was still no means of checking the street vendors or mass suppliers. Ring any bells? In 1868, machine produced tins of food began to appear for the first time on grocers' shelves. And of course, that opened up a whole new can of worms ...


If you would like to download a FREE sample of Diamonds & Dust, A Victorian Murder Mystery, you can do so here. US readers can do so here.





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Headbanging with HMRC

And so we bid farewell to Operation 2, and another small piece of me is on its way to a lab to be scrutinized. One way to lose weight, though not one I'd recommend. Frustratingly, I had to go through the same three blocks of paperwork with three different members of staff answering the same questions as I'd done 23 days ago when I had Operation 1.

They had my files sitting in front of them. They could have saved time and trees by just writing: see above. Paperwork. Of which more anon. Also according to the hospital, my height is now 5ft 10 inches, which means I am bucking the universal trend and getting taller as I get older. I have always been 5 ft 8. Either that, or they are now including my hair as a separate component.

I ended up discharging myself this time, because the Powers That Be had closed wards over the weekend and there wasn't a bed for me. This would have meant staying in the Recovery Room until a bed materialized somewhere, so that I could go and sit on it while the ward staff filled in the relevant paperwork to discharge me. As I resolved ages ago never to be in to Mr Stupid, and the Recovery staff said I was OK to go, I went.

Which brings us to New Year's Resolutions. Some people make Resolutions, some have Resolutions foisted upon them. It has been pointed out to me by BH, in whose company I spent a lovely Christmas break, that I always leave kitchen top cupboard doors open. This was initially hotly denied, but in the face of empirical evidence, I agreed. It might explain the ongoing and daily minor head trauma. The 2014 NYR is to close them after use. So far I have to record a success rate of zero%.

Mind, I am in good company: my friend Lissy not only leaves cupboard doors open, she also leaves drawers out and doesn't replace the kettle on its stand, according to Designer Dave, who treated us to a demonstration with commentary when I went round last week. He has irritating habits too: Lissy and I were driving back from London Colney, where we'd gone to return stuff to M&S (universal post - Christmas activity round here), when she observed that Designer Dave always carries out a running remark-fest on other drivers, which makes her so mad that she has threatened not to drive with him any more.

I was doing precisely the same thing at the time but she'd said nothing, which leads me to the interesting conclusion that bad habits are relative ...  especially when committed by relatives. But back to paperwork. At Hedges Towers the time has come to fill in our self-assessment tax forms. This (apart from Ikea flat-packs with instructions in Swedish and no allen key) is the one thing that causes most strife in the house, because there is always a point where the reconciliation of the various amounts doesn't work and the sum of all my carefully kept receipts and statements and invoices and pay slips is 34p out somewhere.

It happens every year. I dread it, but alas, the whole ghastly soul-destroying, gut-churning, head-banging, marriage-disrupting shebang is kicking off once again this weekend, even as you are reading about it. So if you'll please excuse me, there's a top cupboard door waiting for me, and it's got my name on ...


If you would like to read a FREE sample of my latest novel: Diamonds & Dust, A Victorian Murder Mystery, you can do so here. US readers can do so here.

On The Bench With Seumas Gallacher

''…my kinda Blogger… my kinda lady, that Carol Hedges… on my perpetual slalom through the SOSYAL NETWURKIN whirl, I try never to miss the opportunity to accept invitations to Guest Blog, be the subject of Q and A, wannabe-darling-of-the-Web, me… when Ms Hedges offered to endanger the quality of her pages by allowing this ol’ Jurassic aboard, I asked the standard gambit of ‘…what would ye like?… WURD count?... topic?...’ …the response was immediate…and blunt… ‘an opinion post’ , she said… ‘…length, short-ish, like I usually do,’ she said… and more than a wee hint that just getting on with it would be a good idea… LUVVED IT!... but, ‘opinionated?’ … Moi? Moi?... yeez bet yer sweet a*ses, Moi!... when yeez reach my longevity milepost, it would be a bluudy miracle if there wasn’t a major streak of opinion coursing through these ancient veins… I could give yeez dozens of posts on opinion material, but let me focus on where my head’s at with the modern self-publishers’ eternal question… is it better to labour away at finding an Agent and/or Publisher or to polish yer WURK and devote yer energy to BUILDING THE PLATFORM as an indie?… the answers are ‘open’ …if ye’re lucky to get a good Agent/Publisher relationship early in yer writing adventure, go for it… most will not get that immediately, myself included… but that can actually be a positive thing, and here’s why… yeez get to own and drive a major part of yer own destiny … first opinion, understand the competition for readership eyeballs is massive… getting heard through the cacophony of blether on the virtual channels is difficult… second opinion, define realistic ‘success’ for yerselves… sometimes achieving a few positive reviews does the business… for others, trillions, or hundreds, or dozens, or a pair of sales/downloads suffices… soothes the angst-ish beast that lurks in the breast of every quill-scraper, the doubt, ‘am I good enuff?’ …’fess up time… I’ve been amazingly fortunate thus far… my first two

Blog                : seumasgallacher.comTwitter            : @seumasgallacherFacebook         : http://www.facebook.com/seumasgallacherEmail               : seumasgallacher@yahoo.com
Amazon Links for SAVAGE PAYBACK
UK    http://amzn.to/1gTgJh0 US    http://amzn.to/16hKHci

Save the NHS!

As part of my research for the follow-up to Diamonds & Dust, I've been researching mid-Victorian medical training and surgery. It was a fascinating time - just on the cusp of the surgeon as ''star'' as in: 'I can whip this leg off in 3 minutes; don't bother with anaesthetic, just give the patient a leather strap to bite on' to the realization that sedation played a huge part in the ultimate recovery process and that patient comfort and saving lives was more important than scoring reputation points.

The training was very different in those days. If you didn't have a degree from Oxbridge, which was a fast track way of entering medicine, you paid to be a dresser or apprenticed yourself to a surgeon at one of the country's teaching hospitals, where you watched endless dissections, took a rather basic exam and 4 vivas, and eventually there you were. Have Knife & License, can operate. The research has taken on extra piquancy because as some of you know, I was admitted to hospital just before Christmas for a breast cancer operation.

Amazingly, surgeons were performing my operation in the 1860's. The survival rates were not high, although some women did survive. They didn't have a big arrow stamped on their shoulder pointing to the bit to be operated on as I did though. Nor, bizarrely would they have had their leg labelled - presumably in case it got bored during the op and wondered off. And in those days they were not injected with radioactive blue dye. Surgery has come a long way! (I have to report that I do not now glow in the dark. Sadly).

However my main point is that in 1861, the prospect of my operation was not only fraught with fear and pain and a pretty low success rate, but was largely dependent upon your finances. There was no ''free at the point of delivery'' option. If you were poor, you just suffered terribly and then died. Whereas I had the services of a top Consultant, a skilled anaesthetist and a Registrar all highly trained, and FREE.

The government, as did its Conservative predecessor under Mrs Thatcher, regards FREE as a dirty word and seems determined to control, outsource, de-fund and dismantle the NHS. I experienced some of the results of their malign handiwork when the nurses in the recovery room were so busy getting my paperwork sorted that they forgot to discharge me with any pain relief - I have to report that varying red wine with Prosecco works admirably!

I am so grateful for the NHS - for the ''right'' to FREE medical care. Given my immigrant origins and plebeian status, I doubt I'd have been able to afford my operation in 1861, whatever my chances of survival. And I will fight for the right of others to have the same marvellous treatment that I had. FREE. A return to Victorian values? No thanks!


If you would like to read a FREE sample of Diamonds&Dust, A Victorian Murder Mystery, you can do so here. US readers can do so here.

Beneath the Crinoline: Suffering to be Beautiful, With Carol Hedges

Beneath the Crinoline: Suffering to be Beautiful, With Carol Hedges

Suck It Up!

A couple of weeks ago, I read a blog that has made a huge difference to the way I now view and deal with critical comments, Twitter trolls and Amazon reviews. Sadly, I can't recall the name of the blogger - but it was a male American writer, which narrows it down somewhat.

Basically his message was: Do Not Respond. Ever. His reasoning ran thus: As a writer, you are The Brand. People judge what you write by how you present yourself. Thus, if you come over as whiny, defensive or argumentative -  however justified, prospective readers will back away.

Twitter is a very fast moving medium. A tweet has about a four second life, before it is replaced by others. Ignoring a nasty comment means that is is gone in an instant. As soon as you engage with the remark, you and the sender and the ensuing exchanges become visible to everyone. Whether you ''win'' or not, you will be seen by thousands of people. Will it enhance your ''brand'' for this to happen? If not, don't engage, he advised.

The same could be said for one star reviews. Most readers know what sort of person writes a one star review - either they got hold of the wrong book, didn't understand the book, didn't like the book (fair enough) or are another writer with a new book out, trying to diss the book. Ignoring them and their comments gives the impression that you are a bigger person with a wider vision, he counselled.

This rang true for me: I had just recently witnessed a couple of writers receiving bad reviews and dealing with it by complaining on social media sites - ok, their choice to do so, they were clearly upset and it was important to them to say so. But the result? Everyone instantly hopped over to Amazon to read them. Yes, maybe their good friends piled in with supportive digital shoulders, but I'm not sure this was a professional way of dealing with it. You may disagree.

As soon as we have published a book, we become less important than the readers' experience. In fact I don't think we, the sensitive tortured artistic little soul, figures at all. Witness the friend who recently rang up to see how I was, then went on to tell me at some length that they liked books written in chapters - which I had failed to do in Diamonds & Dust. (For future reference: I write in episodes, not chapters. Episodes. Got that? And I intend to write the sequel in episodes too. Pretentious? Moi?)

The lessons I learned from reading the blog were extremely useful when I started tweeting promos to Diamonds & Dust. A person on Twitter, let us call them X, (though this is not their real name) decided they did not like a particular strand of my advertising. Not at all. And they fired off a series of unpleasant tweets, informing me of their displeasure and accusing me of all sorts of stuff.

Did you see the tweets? Probably not. Why not? Because I did not respond. And I blocked the person, so that the comments are not there any more. The temptation (and it was very very tempting, believe me) was to take them on. I had to have a deep breath, stand back and ask myself: what would be the point? And I decided there was no point. I wanted people to focus on the book, not on the spat.

It has been a hard lesson to learn, especially for someone like me, who has a Degree in Confrontation. But learn it I have. Hopefully. Until the next troll sticks its head out from under the bridge ...


If you would like to read a free sample of Diamonds & Dust you can do so here  
US readers can do so here

The PINK SOFA'S CHRISTMAS PLAY

Yes, exclusively for you, as a: ''Thank you'' for your loyal readership over the past year, THE PINK SOFA would like to welcome you to the Writing Room Theatre. Your seat has been reserved in the front row so if you'd like to settle down, sort out your sweets and snacks and suspend your disbelief pretty well as far as it will go, let us transport you back to a starry December 24th night in a little town called Bethlehem, a very long time ago. 

The curtain rise on a small studio, with an unlucky DJ who has got the graveyard shift

                                             A Starry Night In Bethlehem
DJ: And a very good evening if you've just joined us. This is Radio Bethlehem, broadcasting to Judea, Samaria and outlying regions of Galilee. That last track was Swing Low Sweet Chariot by Moses & the Pharoahs. I'm Zak, you friendly DJ keeping you company right through the night, and we've got an exciting programme lined up for you, so without further delay, let's find out who's up and about and what's happenin' tonight in the great city of Bethlehem. And first off, let's go over to our OB Unit. Jake my friend, are you there?JAKE: Yes, Zak, I'm here.
DJ: I gather you're with some shepherds who are abiding in the fields, keeping watch over their flocks by night. Am I right?
JAKE: (pause) No.
DJ: Er ... right. So where are you?
JAKE: Well, I'm out in the fields, but there aren't any shepherds.
DJ: No shepherds?
JAKE: Nope. Definitely no shepherds anywhere.
DJ: So where are they?
JAKE: Dunno. They were here last night. I guess they must've all gone off somewhere.
DJ: So does that mean you're not going to do one of your incisive interviews probing the intimate details of pastoral life and the place of the small agri-business in the rural economy?
JAKE: Sorry. I can give you some nice recipes for roast lamb?
DJ: Maybe not right now. OK, listeners, there are no shepherds abiding in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night, but never fear, stick with me because we've still got a very exciting show lined up for you here on Radio Bethlehem. So let's move swiftly on to Naomi, our lovely weather girl who's on the roof on the studio. Naomi, are you there?
NAOMI: Hello Zak.
DJ: And what's the weather doing tonight, Naomi?
NAOMI: Well, you know, it's night, so the weather isn't doing very much really.
DJ: Anything exciting happening out there?
NAOMI: Well, the moon is out and I can spot a star. That's about it really.
DJ: Can you give us a few more details?
NAOMI: Um ..the moon is round, and the star is kind of silver and twinkly and very bright.
DJ: No comets, shooting stars, unusual constellation patterns - possibly the odd supernova?
NAOMI: No.
DJ: Son et Lumiere? Bonfires? Firework displays? Small child waving a sparkler?
NAOMI: Can't see any from up here. It's just a perfectly ordinary night. With a moon and a star.
DJ: Thanks Naomi. I'm sure all our listeners will be really interested in that. And now, before we play you some more music, let's go over to our Man About Town for a really exciting report on Bethlehem's hip and happenin' night life. Matt - hi! Where are you?
MATT: Zak - hi.  So I'm standing right outside the Camel and Pitta Bread Inn just off the main square.
DJ: Matt, I gather there have been some huge logistical problems in town tonight on account of the number of visitors to the city. Rumour has it that there is no room at the inn. Can you confirm?
MATT: So earlier today I spoke to the friendly innkeeper here at the Camel and Pitta Bread Inn and he told me there haven't been any problems. He's been able to find rooms for everybody who's turned up.
DJ: I see. So you're saying there are no major riots taking place in the streets of Bethlehem as you speak?
MATT: No.
DJ: No cartloads of disgruntled tourists and holiday makers causing mayhem? No unnecessary acts of mindless vandalism and anti-social behaviour?
MATT: Nope. Everything's really quiet. Not even a doggie barking. There were some shepherds earlier on but they seem to have gone now.
DJ: Well thanks for that Matt. And there you have it, listeners: there are no shepherds abiding in the fields, so homeless people in the streets. Oh - and there is a star in the sky. In other words, it's a perfectly ordinary night in Bethlehem and nothing remotely interesting or exciting is happening.  Anywhere. (under breath)  Sheesh, why me? Right ... let's have some more music then.                                                            The End
So as the actors step forward to receive your applause, it only remains for all of us at Hedges Towers to wish you A Very Happy Christmas. The PINK SOFA will be out and about over the festive season singing carols to raise money for its favourite charity: Rehouse Abandoned and Derelict Sofas. You may be unfortunate enough to find it on your doorstep. Prompt payment will always ensure it goes away.