M.J. Johnson's Blog, page 16

Reflections 2012

It's traditionally a little early to start reflecting on the past year. However, it has been quite a powerful one for me and I feel prompted to talk about it. At approximately this time a year ago I loaded the Niedermayer & Hart Prologue up on You Tube. I'd had to learn how to master the software and edit a piece of film first! I'd already set up this website by then as a wrtiting platform and was coughing up an occasional blog post.

If you haven't seen The Prologue - take a 'butchers' as they say in Cockney rhyming slang:
It was filmed in a white van (with permission) over two evenings in the netball courts of Holmewood House School, near Tunbridge Wells. My son, Tom - director/cameraman, and myself - author/actor - were slowly deep-frozen over the two evenings it took us. I'd better mention Judith my wife too, who was crouched (very uncomfortably and uncomplainingly) in the van's rear, making sure I said all the words I'd written!

This whole publishing venture has been a family affair from the very start. In 2011, I completed Roadrage, having finally overcome my reluctance to put pen to paper ever again after my painful experience with Niedermayer & Hart, when, some years before, it had for several months attracted the interest of a major publishing house. Judith convinced me that I now had two decent books up my sleeve, and that we should bring them both out through our little publishing business Odd Dog Press. We'd formed this back in 2009 to produce Judith's non-fiction, local history book, Southborough War Memorial. The development of the internet, Amazon, Smashwords, e-books and digital printing, not to mention Twitter, Facebook etc has made everything possible for the self-published/indie writer. I wouldn't say it's become a level playing-field exactly - but then, how could it possibly be? Personally, I don't expect people to rush out and buy my books just because I tell them they're okay. I do hope however that they'll read the reviews, listen to their friends' recommendations and decide to buy it because it sounds like something they might enjoy. However, like all books, Niedermayer & Hart (and Roadrage when it arrives shortly) is not to everyone's taste. But, if you're thinking is in line with the eighteen different reviewers who have praised it over various internet sites, then I suspect you're in for an enjoyable time reading.

I am very lucky, my wife and son have been my bulwark, and have remained an unerring source of encouragement and support throughout. I suspect I'd have stumbled and fallen out of the race already without their belief in me. Everyone should have a Judith and a Tom Johnson!

I anticipated spending no more than a month setting myself up on social networking sites and e-formatting Niedermayer & Hart to complement the beautiful trade-sized paperback printed for us by MPG Biddles (very professional and highly recommended!). Ahem! If you're a would be self-publishing/indie writer - I suggest you plan on a timescale of more like six months to get all this stuff established for yourself. I never had to worry about a book cover, because Tom produced a beautiful design for it and did all the clever stuff on Photoshop that was required. He also, despite having a busy full-time job, has made three animations to promote my book (and completed two excellent portraits for his own personal satisfaction as an artist! Take a look - www.tomjohnsonart.com ). He has most recently almost finalised the cover for Roadrage - it's stunning!

Apart from my weekly blog, I started actually writing again in June and found by following a fairly disciplined daily workplan was able to produce 2,000 words a day. I'd completed 74,000 words of the first draft of my next book when my dear mother took a fall at her sheltered home in south-west Wales. She should by rights have recovered, but I suspect she found the increasing dependency of her life too difficult to go on with, her condition continued to deteriorate and on 20 November she died. I was fortunate enough to be with her at the time of her 'passing'.

I'd been awake, apart from a brief nap for over thirty hours by the time I finally took to my bed that evening and fully expected to have quite a disturbed night. I was telling my wife just the other day how I woke up in the hotel the next morning from one of the sweetest night's sleep I can ever recall. I had no memory of any dreams,  just a great feeling of well-being, and I actually had a smile on my face when I opened my eyes! The words of the 14th Century Anchorite Nun, Julian of Norwich, immediately sprang to my mind, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

The funeral has now passed but I find the grieving process goes on and I daresay will do for a while longer. My wife was only eighteen when she met my parents; she and my son both feel the loss deeply too. When something commonplace occurs in my daily life I catch myself thinking to myself, "I must remember to tell Mam that when I ring her next," - sadly not to be! I am slowly getting used to this.

So, as we approach the end of the year (I'm sticking my neck out here and assuming the Mayans got it wrong!) I find myself already in the mood for reflection. Roadrage will be published in the early part of 2013. Niedermayer & Hart is of course already out in the big wide world and I hope that more and more people will continue to discover and enjoy it in 2013. Amazon have recently reduced the cost of the paperback by 10%, and I am about to reduce the price of the Kindle version by 30%.until 7 January. If you'd prefer to buy the book from Smashwords with the same 30% reduction then use this code when purchasing at their checkout: KD25R
I hope that you and your loved ones stay safe this Christmas and very much hope to see you again at this blog in the New Year (although I do plan to write one more entry before then!).

Don't eat too many mince pies!

Sad Time

Taking Mam for a paddle on Horton beach, Gower I have just returned from Wales with my wife and son. We had a busy time, though hardly a joyous one. We travelled down on Friday evening and due to an error on my part (dum-di-dum!), we didn't reach the hotel we were staying at until 3.30am. My wife, who regards her daily seven hours of sleep as sacrosanct, was not amused, and I was quite deservedly  in the dog-house for a while. However, because of the nature of our trip - my mother's funeral -  I did get early parole.

It is a very odd thing to realise that I am now parentless. While at least one of our parents is still here with us, they remain a buffer between us and our own inevitable demise. For me now, those two individuals who were always there, the bedrock of our whole existence when young, are both gone. I was always the youngest boy in my year at school; as a teenager I tended to mix with a group of friends who were older than me, and for years afterwards most of my acquaintances were often a year or two ahead of me in age. It is therefore an odd sensation to be not only parentless, but at the senior end of things.

My father died before he should have done almost two decades ago. However, Mam continued bravely on. She had a long, often sad and lonely widowhood.  Funerals, particularly Welsh ones, are often cited in literature and drama for their displays of piety and hypocrisy. And having just returned from her funeral, I retain some very strong feelings about the way she was undeservedly isolated and neglected in some quarters over many years.

(Hopefully my smiley face will be restored again somewhat by the next time I write this blog!)

Words

I think I must have been born with a love for books and the written word. I seem to possess a fairly vivid picture in my head of every single book that was ever in my house as a child. My uncle recently asked me if I knew of one particular book that his father (my grandad) had read to him when he was a lad, and I could say without any shadow of doubt that I had never seen it. When I was a small child my family were entertained by my eagerness to read anything and everything that entered my line of vision. My parents often described a holiday to London when I was five. It must've been like owning a small, Welsh, walking radio - on the tube train escalators I'd read the passing advertisements proclaiming stuff like, "Players Navy Cut, it's the tobacco that counts ... Pepsi-Cola the light refreshment ... Sirdar corsets for the fuller figure!" You get the picture!

As a Welshman who was always keen to read I naturally loved Dylan Thomas of course. I recall one of my two great English teachers, a lovely man called Terry King, (he was playing Devil's advocate on this occasion I think) informing us that someone had recently accused Dylan Thomas of being a phoney. There was a shocked silence! This maniac's reason for denouncing the great Welsh bard? He had worked out that the numbers habitually scrawled by the side of Thomas's poetical works in progress were in fact references to various pages in Roget's Thesaurus. His conclusion: that Dylan Thomas was therefore a fraud! My view hasn't changed, it's exactly the same now as it was when I was fourteen - basically, that we all have access to our aide-memoires i.e. dictionaries, the thesaurus, but it's 'choosing' where to put the darn words once we've got 'em is the real secret!

When I read Steinbeck it flows so easily that he makes me think writing must be such a simple thing to do. Cormac McCarthy has a poetic feel to what he writes, yet at the same time it's clean and straightforward, he doesn't use much punctuation but weirdly it works like a dream. Dylan Thomas's writing often piles noun after noun on top of each other as if they were adjectives to describe other nouns. These are just three of the many writers I admire. In their written works they pick and utilise words like the skilful craftsmen they are.  Each of these writers is completely different, and in his own unique way uses words economically. This is the one thing they all have in common! I adore reading all three.

The following is a treat for anyone who loves word-play - the late, great, comedy writer/actor Ronnie Barker performing a sketch I've always loved:

Mam

I didn't post a blog last week. I'd gone to visit my mother in Wales. She was in hospital after suffering a fall in her home. I was warned that she'd lost some weight but I was really shocked when I saw the amount. My wife and I had spent four days with her in September and each day we'd accompanied her on a daily walk of a couple of miles. The person lying in that hospital bed couldn't have managed two steps.

I've always visited regularly but twelve or so years ago Mam had a bout of flu that really set her back. I stayed with her for a week until she was well enough to get back on her feet, but I felt she hadn't been taking care of herself as well as she might have done. I made a pact with her: she had to promise to look after herself, and if she did this, I'd visit (whenever humanly possible) every six weeks for three or four days. I'm very lucky that I have an understanding wife who never once complained about the garden being neglected or rooms not getting decorated because of these journeys. She loved my mother too and often spoke of her as being like a second mother to her. My son Tom visited his grandmother regularly and often shared the drive with me to pick her up for Christmas and bring her to our home and then return her afterwards.

My mother passed away on Tuesday 20 November at 8.40 am. I was with her when she died. She was tiny and frail but she gripped my hand tightly right to the last. Her speech was mostly incoherent. It was not easy for her. I don't think she suffered much pain, but she became agitated at times, and was frustrated and sometimes distressed by the long drawn-out process of dying. She was desperately trying to let go but she was a survivor by temperament and her body even in this weakened state still put up a fight.

I was grateful that I could be there just to hold her hand. She would have done the same for me.
Mair Johnson

16 April 1924 - 20 November 2012
She was born at her grandparents' house in Meirion Street Aberdare, South Wales, the only child of George Martin Thomas and Gwenllian Wigley. Her father and mother met shortly after the Great War in which her father had served on the Somme. They married late for their generation and Mair's mother was thirty-five years old when she gave birth to her.

Mair was a sickly child. In her later years she used to joke about being 'very delicate'. At eighteen months she was diagnosed with meningitis and the local doctor told her parents that she would not be with them by the morning. Back in those times every community relied on 'folk medicine' and her 'Bopa' Sarah (Bopa being Valleys dialect for aunty) said to her parents, "Bring her over to me, we'll see what can be done for her" and together with her mother Gwen they applied poultices to the baby's feet every fifteen minutes throughout the night. Mair liked to tell the story of how the doctor (who liked to swear apparently) said to Bopa Sarah the next day, "You've done something to this bloody baby, haven't you?"and she particularly relished re-telling the part where Bopa Sarah shook her head and said with a look of choirgirl innocence, "Nothing at all doctor!" "Well," he said, "I know you've done something, and I take off my hat to you!" The sea air at Porthcawl on the Glamorganshire coast was prescribed by the same GP for Mair's health and she was often taken there for holidays to build up her strength. There are many photographs, her father being a keen amateur photographer, of the skinny-limbed Mair walking along the Porthcawl promenade with a Fulgoni's ice cream cornet in her hand. Perhaps it's why as an adult she had to, "Really feel like an ice-cream."

Until she went to school at five Mair spoke only Welsh. Her parents occasionally lapsed into French, which they both spoke, if they didn't want her to know what they were talking about. Unfortunately, Mair lost the ability to speak her native tongue confidently after beginning school. The Thomas family adopted Ebeneser chapel in Trecynon as their spiritual home. Her father was a deacon in the chapel, in those days the congregation was large, and he produced dozens of amateur theatrical productions, either put on in their vestry or at Aberdare Coliseum. As Mair grew older she became very interested in one particular boy who generally took the main part in her father's productions. She told me often how she might nonchalantly inquire when her father was casting a new play, "So who's playing the lead then, Dad?" and feel a flutter in her breast at his reply, "Oh, Danny Johnson of course!" Mair started courting this boy from the chapel, Daniel Gwynfryn Johnson, who was two years her senior, at the age of fourteen. He was the only man there ever was in her life and she always described him, with his naturally wavy, sandy-coloured hair as 'handsome'. They were thoroughly devoted to each other. The only time they were separated for any length of time was during World War II when Danny served in India with the RAF. They wrote a letter to each other every day for two and a half years. Often these letters to each other finished with the words 'Have faith always'. Mair spent most of the war at a factory testing shell casings. Towards the end of the war Mair's parents bought a small general stores in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire, and this was where Danny headed as soon as he returned home after VJ day in 1946. They were married in 1947 and their first son, Ian was born in 1948. They had very little money in those early years together and Mair said Danny's first wage packet was five shillings - twenty-five pence! They attended Ebeneser where Danny was made a deacon shortly after his return. He was a modest man and she said that when his name was put forward he immediately got to his feet and proclaimed that he was too young to be made a deacon. The chapel however didn't agree, they made him a deacon and shortly afterwards he became their secretary too, from 1948 - 1960. They were both very involved in the activities of the local community. Mair loved to sing in the chorus of the Aberdare Operatic Society and took part in many of their productions like The King and I, Chou Chin Chow, Annie Get Your Gun etcetera. I was born in 1955. Danny, who was fully bi-lingual, took a job at Ty John Penry Press in Swansea and in 1960 the family moved west. We shared our home with Mam's parents and her great aunt 'Bopa' Mary after they'd retired from their shop. Mair and Danny worked diligently and selflessly at caring for their elderly relatives. As time went on they became proud, devoted grandparents and happily exploitable baby-sitters. They took their eldest grandchildren with them on their first package holidays abroad. Our son Tom, almost a decade younger than his 'first cousins', used to pack his case on the first day of his school holidays and expect us to deliver him from our home in East Sussex to South Wales to spend the summer with 'Gramma' and 'Dycu'.

In 1995, my father tragically died of a perforated ulcer which had been mis-diagnosed. Mair found herself a widow at the age of seventy-one. She put enormous effort into finding hobbies and interests to fill the void that now existed in her life. She took up art and calligraphy classes and made full use of her bus pass by visiting friends and relatives in Aberdare on quite often a weekly basis. She went out for lunch several days a week to pass the time. Unfortunately, as she got older she began to suffer with glaucoma and cataracts and it became harder and harder for her to see, which made art increasingly difficult. Mair had three great grandchildren. In 2010 she suffered a fall at her local shop which resulted in a hip replacement and after this she became increasingly dependent. My wife researched local sheltered housing and a place was found for her. Mam liked her little flat and often said she thought of it as an extension of her beloved bungalow.

Mam had a quirky way of looking at the world and could express herself in ways that often amused those in her company. On the subject of age and the prospect of getting older, she'd say with a deadpan expression, "I don't think much of this old age business! I won't be joining again!" She didn't enjoy the increased dependency that age brought and it was possibly this thought more than anything else that brought her to the final pages of her life at Gorseinon Hospital following a fall at her flat.

She is no longer suffering the many hours of desperate loneliness she often felt in her last years and is, I believe, happily reunited with her Danny, "The best pal I ever had," as she would have put it.

Horror Stories are just Fairytales for Big Kids!

Baba Yaga (puppet courtesy of Tom Johnson) Hey! I just had a great idea for a horror story! How about:
 
Two children in a time of economic recession are abandoned deep in a forest by their parents, mainly because of the promptings of their hateful stepmother. However, they don't die as anticipated but come upon a house made of biodegradable foodstuffs. They start to eat, but unbeknown to them, the house belongs to a cannibalistic old woman...
 
Wait just a moment! This is beginning to sound awfully
familiar!
 
Horror is about evoking emotions - fear, apprehension and dread. I imagine that as a child when my mother told me the story of Hansel and Gretel I felt pretty darn scared- good thing I was cuddled up to her, all snug and safe. As a teenager I read Bram Stoker's Dracula tucked up in bed before going off to sleep (with some difficulty, I hasten to add!). In the second chapter after quite a lot of bulging eyeballs and suggestive genuflection from peasants, which the story's hero has dismissed as nothing more than bucolic superstition, he finally arrives at You Know Who’s Castle! When the Count implores Jonathan Harker to cross over his threshold with "Welcome to my house! Enter freely of your own free will" - I was shaking my pimply adolescent head with deep foreboding. Yet, while my common sense was yelling "Don't be a fool! Go back!" - at exactly the same time another part of me was urging him on. Let's face it, it wouldn't have made a very good book if Jonathan Harker had given himself a sound talking to at this point.  Imagine if he'd said to himself, "Blimey! Don't care for the cut of this chap's jib. That's the dodgiest cove I ever did see! Think I'd best make myself scarce!"
 
In real life the last thing anyone in their right mind would do is enter that castle!
 
However, as the main protagonist in a horror story, it is Jonathan Harker's duty to do just that! He would have been letting countless generations of readers down if he hadn't entered that castle. Imagine how dreadful it would have been to have been spared from hearing the Count utter, once he's entered his lair, that most chilling of lines, "... and leave something of the happiness you bring." Which I have to say even after all these years still makes my hair feel a bit funny! 
 
I'm  pretty certain that we human beings have been sitting around telling each other creepy tales since speech was invented. I suspect it may even be important in some way to a child's development to be frightened whilst at the same time feeling safe and nurtured. The need seems to continue as we grow older - particularly through adolescence. Are the Hannibal Lecter books dark psychological thrillers or are they horror stories? Is Alien sci-fi or is it horror? I reckon we used to sit around the campfire outside the communal cave telling tales to scare the pants off each other (or bearskin perhaps?). When a Niedermayer & Hart reader has got in touch with me to say how much they enjoyed the book but that they found they could only read it in the daytime - my chest expands with pride!
 
So what is the difference between a so called fairy story and a horror  story?
 
I honestly don't know.
 
Quite possibly just the fact that it would be deemed unusual to be found on your mum's knee whilst reading a horror story? Unless of course, you'd been brought up by a woman who was extremely possessive and never allowed you to grow up. Who knows, perhaps she didn't let you to mix with other children - especially with girls. Possibly the only strangers you ever really saw were the occasional visitors who arrived at your small backwoods motel... 
 
This is beginning to sound awfully familiar again! My own ripping yarn with horror/thriller elements Niedermayer & Hart will be available in most formats at a special low price ($0.99 - approx 63p) over at Smashwords this coming weekend (Friday 16 November - Monday 19 November). All you have to do to claim your discount is present the coupon code from the About Me page of this website at their checkout!

A Cinematic Smorgasbord!

It's been an interesting week for us Johnsons since I posted my last blog. On Thursday the wife and I went to see The National Theatre of Great Britain's production of Timon of Athens at our local Odeon cinema in the NT Live season. Timon of Athens is probably Shakespeare's least performed play, and because of this I was especially keen to see it. Shakespeare wrote it in collaboration with Thomas Middleton and it's likely that it was never performed in Shakespeare's lifetime. The work is fragmentary in parts and certainly not the kind of complete, polished work we expect from either of these illustrious names. The other great attraction was an opportunity to watch Simon Russell Beale - a truly superb actor. We were not to be disappointed, either by Beale's tour de force performance, the excellent supporting cast, or by the production which was directed by Nicholas Hytner. Hytner had done marvellous things with the text through judicious editing and I believe some poaching from other pieces of the writers' works. The play was set in a contemporary City of London with the emphasis on its worst excesses that have of course been widely reported throughout the media in recent days. The play is a moral fable, about money, greed, corruption amidst an abiding culture of self-congratulatory smugness. Sadly, if you missed this production, you will not get another opportunity to see it, as this broadcast was also its final live performance. If you love great theatre I implore you, wherever you live (these productions are shown in literally hundreds of cinemas right across the globe!), to check out your local NT Live venue.

On Friday, I raised myself bleary-eyed from bed for a day working as a kind (cheap and sub-standard) of removals-man. My son and his girlfriend have just bought their first house together. Both sets of parents lent a hand and in the evening we all piled into cars and came over to our house for a meal. Anyone who's ever bought a house will know the kind of angst you have to go through! They are in! The house is theirs! I guess they'll be living out of cardboard boxes for a while, but they're young, together and I know they'll enjoy the adventure. They have our love and very best wishes.

On Saturday, we went to see the new Bond film, Skyfall . A bit of a departure from the usual Bond template and at times I have to say it felt more like I was watching John Le Carre (or possibly Len Deighton) than Ian Fleming. I know the critics have applauded it, but I'm not entirely sure that I want to see James Bond harassed by dark psychological hang-ups from a damaged childhood. We all know that JB doesn't give two hoots for that sort of thing! Isn't that why we love him? Because he's decisive, untroubled by self-doubts - not in the teensiest least bit screwed-up like the rest of us! I have always been a Judi Dench fan ever since I saw her play Viola in Twelfth Night at Stratford on a school trip there when I was fourteen. However, I must say I thought her character had too much prominence in this film, and when she started reciting Tennyson on a very slim pretext, it felt like the producers had thought, 'Let's give Judi some poetry to recite so we can enjoy her marvellous delivery.' At times watching the film it felt like 'M' might have stood for 'Mummy'! Still, there was a lot of enjoyable stuff too, but I don't personally believe this came close to being a classic Bond film. I did wonder too (no factual basis for saying this - merely a thought I had!) whether the role played by Albert Finney was conceived with Sean Connery in mind? If so, and if he'd agreed to appear this would have been a quite a coup and might have put a whole new complexion on the film. Not that there was anything at all wrong with Albert Finney, but imagine the impact of the first Bond appearing in the latest Bond fifty years on!

The Sheik (1921) On Sunday, we went to Salomons, which is a unique local venue, to see George Melford's The Sheik , starring Rudolph Valentino and Agnes Ayres. It was accompanied on the Welte Philharmonic Organ by Donald Mackenzie. He is the house organist at the Odeon Leicester Square and has performed all over the world. When he is not performing in concerts he specialises in the accompaniment of silent films and now has over twenty films in his repertoire. Donald Mackenzie and Welte Organ I saw him with my son at the same venue a couple of years back accompanying Nosferatu (appropriately on Halloween!) and we were enthralled by the experience. The great art and skilfulness of the musical accompaniment totally brought what was happening up on the screen to life! The Sheik was not a disappointment either. Valentino's acting might seem a little predictable today but he was incredibly handsome and it's not hard to imagine the fluttering hearts of many a gal (and perhaps a few lads too!) back in 1921. The film had all the ingredients: romance, action, smouldering sexual passion, a dastardly villain etc. I couldn't help thinking of my grandparents, who married extremely late for their generation (both well over 30), possibly watching this film whilst they courted. I think this movie may well have affected the birth rate!

And now, back to writing! The delightful Brinda @Wilovebooks invited me to take part in a blog interview recently (my first!) which she posted yesterday. Here's the link to Wilove Books if you'd care to take a look. 

The Perfect Read for Halloween!

A few weeks ago I did a book signing at the Cult Publishers Expo at the Cinema Museum in Lambeth. I always enjoy meeting other people who write, so I stopped by the table of two very friendly chaps who were also signing. We chatted for a while and their books sounded really interesting so I suggested we do a straight swap - theirs for a copy each of mine! Their books were published by MX, an independent publisher whose catalogue is mainly divided between Victorian literature and educational books - a great number of the books they publish are about Conan Doyle's famous Victorian detective, Sherlock Holmes. In fact, one of the authors, Luke Benjamen Kuhns, had written his book about the Baker Street sleuth, entitled The Untold Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I'm afraid that I haven't had time to read this yet but hope to get round to it in the not too distant future.

The other author was Roger Johnson and his book was In The Night In The Dark - Tales of Ghosts and Less Welcome Visitors. The title is a quote from one of my favourite horror movies, The Haunting (1963) directed by the excellent Robert Wise. In The Night In The Dark  is a compilation of ghostly and supernatural tales and the book is divided into three sections: Things that Go Bump in the Night (tales from the Endeavour); Things from Beyond; and More Things in Heaven and Earth.

The first section is comprised of ghost stories written in the tradition of M R James, which are a joy to read. They are exquisitely well written and I have found them delightful bedtime reading over the last couple of weeks (my wife thinks I am barking mad to read ghost stories just before I go to sleep!). As with all story compilations I had my favourites of course but they are all beautifully crafted to a very high standard indeed. I devoured all these tales with much glee, although I suppose the stories that really stood out for me were The Scarecrow, The Wall Painting and The Prize. The stories are linked by a device whereby people are invited to tell their ghostly tale to a couple of locals in the setting of an old fashioned Essex pub, called The Endeavour. This section was originally published in 2001 as A Ghostly Crew: Tales from the Endeavour. I would have been more than delighted with the book on the strength of this section alone.

The book's second section Things from Beyond is based on the writing of H P Lovecraft. I must confess to not being a great Lovecraft fan myself, however, Roger Johnson managed to keep me reading and more importantly kept me interested. The book's final section More Things in Heaven and Earth is a miscellany of various pieces of writing that includes some poetry. This section also includes a chilling tale entitled Love, Death and the Maiden based on the grim and very bloody life history of Countess Elisabeth Bathory, which I thought was truly excellent.

I can't think of a worthier book to be recommending on 31 October - Happy Halloween!

In The Night In The Dark is available from all good bookshops and may also be purchased from Amazon, Barnes and Noble and in electronic formats like Amazon Kindle and Kobo.

A Cheese Feast!

Say Cheese! I've been thinking (musically!).

When my son was fifteen or so, teenagers actually used to compile and listen to these now obsolete things called cassettes. How quaint! A few years later on, the rage amongst the young was to burn compilations of their favourite songs onto CDs for their friends. I expect they do something similar with their ipods today, or whatever is the current method of sharing music. I'm certain of one thing, they will definitely be sharing tracks. Since the birth of recorded sound every new generation has adopted the popular tunes of each era as its personal soundtrack. When I was young, your mate suggested you came over to his house after school to listen to the new Bowie album. If he was a good mate he might even let you borrow it.

Anyway, I say, why should the youth have all the fun!

I was lying in bed recently and I started humming some of my favourite tunes. Then, I started to think about my favourite cheesy songs. Let me explain, a cheesy song in my definition isn't a bad song, although it might have been toe-curlingly awful if it hadn't been for that little bit of fairy dust that came along and made it great.

So, for this blog only: here is my all time best cheesy/fantasy compilation album!

Since that's a bit of a mouthful (as cheese can occasionally be!) I'll simply call it:

The Cheese Feast (with extra cheese topping!)

My album tracks would be as follows and run in this exact order:

Harper Valley PTA - Jeannie C Riley
Bang Bang - Nancy Sinatra
Sex Machine - James Brown
Son of a Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield
Walk on By - Dionne Warwick
Return to Sender - Elvis
Jolene - Dolly Parton
Mona Lisa - Nat King Cole
Fever - Peggy Lee
Something Stupid - Nancy and Frank Sinatra
Hit the Road Jack - Ray Charles
Respect - Aretha Franklin
Son of Hickory Holler's Tramp - O C Smith
That's Amore - Dean Martin
If I were a Carpenter - Johnny Cash and June Carter
King of the Road - Roger Miller
The Shoop Shoop Song - Cher
These Boots are Made for Walking - Nancy Sinatra
From Russia with Love - Matt Monro
The Onion Song - Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

Wouldn't this be a truly awesome album?

A veritable festival of cheese!

After all, let's face it, a little bit of cheese is always palatable. But for me this album would totally fit the bill, because sometimes when the mood takes me, and when it comes to cheese - nothing else will do!

Eat! Enjoy! (no crackers needed!)

Haussmans

The wife and I were really happy last Thursday because we were off to see another play in the NT Live season at our local cinema. The season actually began about a month ago after a short summer break. It started with Simon Stephens' adaptation of Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (which took its name from Sherlock Holmes' remark to Watson in the story Silver Blaze by A Conan Doyle) about an autistic boy. Unfortunately, we weren't able to get to that one - you can't win them all!

Anyway, back to the production we saw last week - The Last of the Haussmans by Stephen Beresford. Beresford himself is an actor turned writer and this was quite incredibly his first play. Imagine what a terrifying experience that must be, having your very first play performed at the National? I can picture the poor chap on the first night pacing the battlements (substitute - upper circle) like the ghost of Hamlet's dad!

If this was actually the case, he really needn't have worried: the cast, direction, set design, lighting etc were all superb. The play's action takes place in the house and garden of Judy Haussman's dilapidated house on the Devon coast. Judy (Julie Walters) as a young woman had left her children with her (Edwardian in outlook we are told) parents and gone off to experience a hedonistic existence in an Ashram in India. Her children, now grown-up, are not surprisingly both extremely damaged and needy. Libby the daughter (Helen McCrory) is desperate to find love and affection wherever she can get it and is for much of the play roundly condemned by her own daughter Summer (Isabella Laughland). Libby has recently been having an affair with creepy (married) local doctor, Peter (Matthew Marsh), and we sense from the very first that it's not going to end well. The doctor covers-up his sexual liaisons with Libby by exploiting  the swimming skill of a damaged local teenager, Daniel (Taron Egerton), who practises daily in the Haussmans' crumbling pool. Judy's son Nick (Rory Kinnear) returns home in the first scene; he is an overtly gay addict/alcoholic who like his sister has a history of forming relationships with the wrong people.

Phew!

The catalyst for bringing the family together is Judy's health scare which is at first believed to have passed but has, we learn later on, been mis-diagnosed. This is a comedy about extremely dysfunctional human beings. The script is very funny but I have to say at times I found them far too sad to laugh at - a bit like pointing and laughing at a troupe of lame dogs! However, I think it might have been far easier to watch this play live in the theatre (which is of course what it was written and produced for!) as opposed to live in a cinema. The show was often shot in quite big close-ups, which is of course never an option if you're part of a theatre audience, and personally I think it was a mistake to get in quite so close to the action for so much of the time. Actors gauge their performances quite differently for different media and what might be fairly subtle on a stage may equally appear quite broad when your face is twenty feet high on a cinema screen!

I'm not really complaining though. It's great to see world class theatre for the price of a cinema ticket and to be able to get home have a cup of tea and be tucked-up in bed by 11pm! (Is that a bit sad? Please don't answer!).

NT Live plays in cinemas all over the world; however I believe the dates can vary from country to country. In November we've already booked for Shakespeare's Timon of Athens with the wonderful Simon Russell Beale in the title role. Then in January we hope to get seats (not yet bookable last time we checked) for The Magistrate by Arthur Wing Pinero and which stars the excellent John Lithgow.

Can't wait!

Book Signing at the Cinema Museum

I'm really looking forward to signing copies of Niedermayer & Hart next Saturday (13 October). I was delighted when Dexter O'Neill of Fantom Films asked me if I'd like to be involved. I only got to know him last year, and he was very kind to offer his advice when I was in the process of publishing Niedermayer & Hart through the little company my wife and I started a few years back, called Odd Dog Press. He had originally got in touch with me to ask if I'd like to be involved in a panel interview he was organising - a day of talk events with the dubious title Acceptable in the Eighties! My personal contribution to eighties Dr Who was in the guise of Tyheer and the Bandril Ambassador in the two episodes of the series Timelash - alas, never regarded (not even by die-hard fans!) as the Doctor's finest hour. In fact if you're imaginative with words and good with letters, as pointed out to me by a fan on the Acceptable in the Eighties signing day, the letters in the title Timelash can be easily rearranged into a moderately rude and some might say quite apt two-word anagram. (For more stuff about Timelash see my blog Dr Who, Timelash and the Bandril Ambassador)
The event is at the Cinema Museum in Kennington, which is somewhere I'm certainly hoping I'll get a good chance to look around on the day. They have all kinds of interesting cinematic paraphernalia there and a fantastic programme of scheduled events. Take a look!

The book event itself is titled Cult Publishers Expo. I can hear them ask, Is Odd Dog Press a cult publisher then? No, definitely not, although I do have a friend who firmly believes N & H will attain cult status at some point in the future. Personally, I only wish he'd read the tea- leaves (or whatever gave him this insight into my up and coming good fortune) with a bit more precision timing-wise! A year - mmm, nice! Two years - yeah okay! Twenty years - oy veh!

I'm looking forward to seeing Paul Darrow there on the day - he was also in Timelash, although I think on this occasion he's there in his capacity as a cult hero from that cult series Blake's Seven. Be honest, did I use the word 'cult' too many times in the last two paragraphs?

If you live near Kennington or fancy a daytrip to London on Saturday 13 October, I'm sure it'll be a fun day. The day's programme of events runs from 11am til 4pm and there's a series of interesting talks throughout the day. The address is The Cinema Museum, Kennington, London and I'll be there from 11am until 2pm. So come along and have a chat or better still chat to me while I sign your copy of Niedermayer & Hart! And just think, if you do buy a book, not only will you be putting a smile on the face of an impoverished writer/actor, you may be helping N & H on its way to achieving cult status too! LOL!