Claire North's Blog

Happy 2020

Happy New Year, all!  Another solar cycle complete; hopefully a little more rested, a little less stressed in time for the next orbital rollick.  2019 was a bit of a rollercoaster, all things considered – both good and bad.
As anyone who’s regularly poked at this corner of the internet will notice – there’s a new look to the blog.  The lovely team at Hachette have stepped in to make things waaaaayyyy more sexy and hopefully useful and accessible in general, for which they have all my thanks! Writers are notoriously bad at much of life, so I’m extra grateful when a team of consummate professionals got my back.  It is still a bit in development, so please bear with us as a few things are tidied up, tweaked and changed over the coming weeks.

In the mean-time, some 2020 stuff….

The odds are pretty good there’ll be another book out towards the end of the year, just as soon as I finish writing it.  In the meantime, William Abbey is out in hardback and audio (read again by the ridiculously talented Peter Kenny), and will be out in paperback soonish too.

I’m definitely going to at least one convention in the UK this year, and maybe also one in Europe – though I’m not sure anything’s been formally announced so watch this space.  And there will hopefully be more booky-event-type announcement things as the year trundles along, which I’ll try to update with more than 48 hours notice!

Film stuff, from what I can tell, seems to pootle along as it always does.  I’m afraid I’m a pretty hands-off writer when it comes to the development process, on the principle that there are armies of qualified professionals with years of actual skill and craft working on these adaptations, and I am none of the above.  However there’s a bunch of stuff under option so I’m keeping fingers crossed and we’ll see how it goes.

In May I’m doing my usual, bonkers spring thing of completing some sort of challenge for a charity.  This year I have somewhat foolishly agreed to run the Hackney Half Marathon.   This is a journey that began with raising money for cancer research many years ago… with a 5km jog round Battersea Park.  How we got to a half marathon bewilders me.  Unlike last year’s Swimathon, which was very much swum in honour of a friend, the Hackney Half is entirely my own goddamn fault.  However it is raising money for Macmillan, who I have a lot of time for.  As well as cancer research, I remember the Macmillan nurse being the first person the hospital called when my Gran was dying to come to her bedside and assess her palliative care needs.  She was a bastion of calm, compassion and professionalism in a scary time, both for my Gran but also for the family, and in a world where we are still terrified of talking about death, having someone there who isn’t frightened, and who knows what to expect is more valuable than I can possibly express.

Finally, 2019 was a political shit-show and I’m not gonna pretend I’m not monumentally depressed about 2020 in that regard.  I try to keep my political activism (hi, Greens) down a notch on this blog unless there’s an election in the works, but as an environmentalist it’s especially gutting to see a government that isn’t merely one of the most cowardly, deceitful and bigoted we’ve ever seen – but one that just blithely ignores the urgent, ongoing climate crisis that is changing our planet now.  I don’t know what next year will bring or how this fight continues… but I guess 2020 will be partially about working that out.

In the meanwhile… there are always more stories to tell, more books to scribble, more adventures to have!  Wherever you are and whatever the year brings, I hope you have a good’un!

 

[NO-IMAGE]

General Election 2019

In about 48 hours, the UK goes to the polls again. And not gonna lie – I’m knackered. But if you only read one paragraph of this, then please, please go vote. The issues facing this country right now are huge. Please take this opportunity to have your say, however uch the whole political process feels right now.



As readers of this blog know, I’m likely to vote Green. Climate change: the defining problem of this century. One that is manageable and fixable – so long as we do something NOW. The longer we leave it, the harder and more costly that’s gonna be.

If I lived in a marginal constituency, this would be a harder call. To keep out Boris Johnson I would vote Labour or even Lib Dem, despite my deep suspicions of the latter.

But to keep out the Torres… yeah, I’d do it. And I figured I’d take this last minute moment to say why.
Climate Change
The evidence is overwhelming, and even if you doubt the science (which there is no reason to) we are already experiencing the effects for ourselves. Extreme weather events, more storms, deadly heatwaves, floods – they’re here, ruining lives, and they’re just the start. I want a government that acts. The Conservative Party has in its 9 years in power, abolished the Department for Energy and Climate Change, gutted the Environment Agency, ignored floods, blocked renewable energy projects, supported fracking in defiance of all evidence and community rebellion, put fossil fuels at the heart of their economic manifesto and are hiking VAT on solar and renewable energies to 20%, while coal remains at 5%. This is the action of a government entirely in bed with and protecting the fossil fuel industry, and is dangerous, short sighted and obscene. It’s not just a gross neglect – it is a refusal to engage with reality, and frankly I don’t want a government that ignores reality.
The NHS
The Tories lie. Boris Johnson more than anyone. His claim of 60 new hospitals – a lie. His claim of 40000 new nurses – a lie. Wait times are up, morale is rock bottom, the doctors, nurses and front line staff of the NHS are rebelling and yes, there is some evidence that the NHS is up for grabs, continuing an already alarming theme of increased costs and privatisation under the Tory government. We have one of the most efficient and egalitarian health services in the world. We must protect it.
Local government
Since 2010, local authority funding has plunged by more than 50% across huge swathes of the country. This is funding for pupils in schools. For health services. For social care – the gutting of which has pushed people in crisis into the NHS, shifting the burden without addressing needs compassionately – and more effectively – in the community. It’s funding for crisis centres, for libraries, parks, care for the elderly. It’s a gutting of our local services, which can be disguised as not an attack on our healthcare, education, elderly and children by simply lumping it into one big category ‘local government’.
Taxation
Wealth inequality in the UK has increased staggeringly in the last few decades. The rich are richer, the poor poorer. And what’s more, the rich aren’t just sitting in their cash – it is being used to control our politics and society. The media is owned by billionaires pushing an agenda that promotes their welfare. The Conservatives, who propose policies that benefit the wealthy, are receiving more funding than any other party. The privatisation of services only benefits the wealthy who profit from services that should serve the people, being re-tooled to profit shareholders. Asset stripping is rife. Thankfully, we have a tool to redress this – income tax. The argument that raising tax on the richest will damage the economy has been consistently disproved; and moreover the levels of increased taxation proposed by parties of the left is, in the grand scheme of things, a drop in the ocean. Johnson’s cabinet is two thirds from a private education background; privilege begets privilege, and is very, very reluctant to let it go. The idea that we value a teacher to the tune of £24k a year, but that a banker “deserves” bonuses of millions of pounds is a grotesque social imbalance. However, the Tories are not merely proposing a tax break for the wealthiest, they intend to raise Council Tax – the single most inequitable tax available after the already-hiked VAT rate. If money is power, then an untouchable elite is being created above us all.
Brexit
Here’s the thing: yes, I think Brexit is a terrible, terrible idea. Yes, I think it’s going to hurt us all. I think the evidence is pretty good for that. But even if I did just want it all over with, Boris Johnson has already proven himself a liar, again. He has lied about a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. He lies about migration, he lies about economics, he lies when faced with evidence from his own government, he lies about proroguing parliament and was rebuked by the Courts for it. He spreads hate and misinformation, and when questioned on anything, makes it about Brexit. It is impossible to trust a word he says, or that he acts in anyone’s interest except his own.
Bullying/lies/accountability
On which theme, remember how he told the country that Parliament was undemocratic after they voted him down? Remember how he lied to the Queen, and went out of his way to (unsuccessfully) undermine democracy and debate in the UK?

Or how the Tories pretended to be fact-checkers during a debate? Or threatened to revoke Channel 4’s license after he refused to take part in the Climate Debate? Or goes after the BBC on those rare occassions when they call out his nonsense? Or refused to be interviewed by the BBC, unlike every other leader of every other party?

Or hey – how he refused to publish a report on Russian meddling in UK elections against the advice of his own government? Or refused to answer corruption charges from his time as Mayor of London? Or the endless counts of racism and snobbery at his back? Or the times he was fired for lying? Or Tory boundary changes that specifically benefit them? Or voter ID laws that have been condemned for disenfranchising hundreds – potentially thousands of people, generally identified as minority and low income people – to tackle a problem that again, the UK government says doesn’t exist?

The Tories are systematically attempting to undermine every independent, democratic, free and critical institution in this country. They are creating division and willfully, actively, spreading disinformation. A vote for Boris Johnson is a vote for bullying, lies, inequality and corruption.
On December 12th, please vote tactically to keep the Tories out.

[NO-IMAGE]

The Pursuit of William Abbey – available now!

Whooooo! New book! New book published new book! It’s in the UK, US and I think internationally available in English, with other languages coming. It’s also available in audio, read by the very excellent Peter Kenny.


The official blurb is below… and it’s now available in all good and hopefully even a few perfectly average bookshops!

 




[hbg-title isbn="9780356507415" /]

[NO-IMAGE]

S.M.A.S.H – November 23rd

Come join myself and a panel of awesome-sauce humans for an evening of, I’m hoping, chaos, arguments, wild non-sequiteurs and general high-jinks at the Barbican Library (one of the Best Libraries Ever) on November 23rd for S.M.A.S.H, hosted by the London Graphic Novel Network. We’re specifically gonna be tackling Dystopias, Reality and Censorship, and it should be loads of fun!

More information and free tickets can be found here.

 

William Abbey – publishes soon!

‘Tis nearly November 2019, which means….



The Pursuit of William Abbey will be out in all good bookshops – and ebook retailers – and as an audiobook – soon! November 14th, whooooo!

 

It’s the story of a doctor who, in 1884, is cursed for standing idly by while a barbaric injustice is committed. From that day on, wherever he goes, a shadow follows him, and if it gets too close, it’ll kill someone he loves. Unfortunately (as if that wasn’t frustrating enough), the closer it comes the more William knows the truth of people’s hearts, making him a very attractive pawn in the game of international politics, espionage and general malignant daring-do that dominated European politics at the time. Globe-trotting around from the height of the British Empire to the trenches of World War One, it’s your standard fare of love, betrayal, spies and revolution.

 

Hope you enjoy it!

 


[hbg-title isbn="9780356507415" summary="

'MESMERIC, TERRIFYING AND WONDERFUL' M. R. Carey, author of The Girl With All the Gifts

 

Moving, thought-provoking and utterly gripping, Claire North's extraordinary new novel proves again that she is one of the most original and innovative voices in modern fiction.

" /]

What I Learned Watching Criminal – Netflix

Criminal: UK

Protocol is everything. If you have 30 seconds until the interview is over, you have 30 seconds, and that's it. You do not cross that line.
A lot depends on your solicitor. They are there to enforce protocol. Protocol is everything.
Romance is a shy, tender thing. Any romance that goes beyond a cautious look between two officers is a matter of Great Controversy, for it has breeched protocol.
Know how you're doing well? When your interviewee shuts down into an emotional wall, encased in the sheer weight of logic and evidence from which there is no escape.
Everyone is guilty. Or at least did something dodge. The question is not whether this is the case, because you do not go into that room without forensics - simply whether you can prove it, and catch them out.
If you breach protocol, you will be fired. And maybe your entire team too. But in that moment it will be essentially the emotional denoument of the entire series. Forget the pain and suffering, the violence and the trauma. PROTOCOL MUST BE UPHELD.

Criminal: Spain

Sure, there's protocol, but screw it. There's a job to be done! Fake that search warrant, kidnap that dog, let people scream and beat their fists against the wall. It works! It works and that is all that matters.
Solicitors are essentially there to take notes, and every now and then point out that what your doing is technically off-book, without doing anything about it. Even the clients don't give a monkeys about their legal advice.
You know how you're doing well? When the interviewee breaks down screaming on the floor, tears and pounding of fists. Case: solved.
Guilt is a complicated, tangled notion. There's a mystery to be unravelled here, but it's one of betrayal, hurt and wounded hearts in this dark and twisted world.
Romantic relationship at work? FINE. A tender brush of hand to shoulder; a gentle palm resting on an insubordinate's thigh? It's all in the name of love, and when life is traumatizing and bleak, what else is there but love?

(Also, Criminal: Spain had one of the most powerfully affecting episodes of the whole lot. Though also seems to no longer be part of the Schengen zone, for narrative purposes. Meh, whatever!)

Criminal: France

All Criminal episodes have a woman either near or at the top, which is nice. In the UK, this manifests in a conversation about how hard it is being a woman in a man's world, and the steely-eyed will you need to succeed. In France, this is a disaster. A young woman has been promoted over her older, male colleagues? UNACCEPTABLE. She must be ousted through political scheming and betrayal, until she finally is forced to 'prove herself' after a season of being undermined. Pouvoir des filles!
Of course, it's hard being a woman in the French police. Because if you're not being constantly undermined by your own colleagues, you're ruining cases, destroying any hope of a successful investigation or screaming hysterically at a mirror. Oddly enough, the men are fine with this, even if her female boss is not. If only there was some sorta protocol here....?
Solicitors know how to play the game. Protocol - it is but a tool to be bent to the will of a master.
Know how you're doing well? The head in hands. There is no screaming here, no wailing or gnashing of teeth. The suffering of your interviewees is an internalised sob of despair, pressed in behind their aching brows.
What is guilt anyway? Is guilt not a kind of love? Does love - or the absence of it - not fuel our greatest betrayals, our greatest acts of cowardice or despair? No one is truly guilty. We are all just looking for a connection, n'es pas?

Criminal: Germany

Screw protocol! I was swimming when you wanted me to arrest the suspected murderer! This wasn't a police interview, not really - we were just chatting about corpses and betrayal, like old buddies! Kidnap that prisoner; it's how things were done in the good old days. Protocol is for loooossseeerrsss.
Another threatening woman here, challenging the older, wiser men, god damn her. But at least she's got some heart, because a) she learns to recognise that men breaking rules can be good and b) she's pregnant, and doesn't get upset when her subordinates make a joke about her urination habits. Yaaaayyyy.
Curiously, there is another woman here, who stands behind the mirror and looks as if she should totally be in charge, but says, I think, maybe two words? She is enigma.
Is this dude guilty? Are you? Am I? Maybe we all are! We're solving this in real-time, peeps. There's a mystery to be untangled, a plot to be driven forward. If there turns out to be a secret door in the interview room itself, I will not be surprised. Did you see the way that man just adjusted his cuff? I bet it means something.
Know how you're doing well? Profound resignation. The die has been cast; the end cometh. We may as well face it, and ourselves, when the morning comes, for better or worse.
Solicitors... are utterly terrifying creatures who don't just bend the law, they actively commit blackmail, in front of police witnesses, AND GET AWAY WITH IT, because... solicitors? Fear them. They crush protocol beneath their feet! Protocol: the crutch of inferior minds!

(Fun fact: it is illegal in Germany to refer to a police officer with the informal 'du'. Unless you're using the formal 'sie' you can be charged and fined. Not that you'd know it here.)

Support the Climate Strike

Very late in the day, please support the climate strike! Climate change is the single greatest threat to our existence. It is already manifesting in deadly heatwaves, spreading diseases, decreased fertility, water shortages and ever-more deadly extreme weather. It is ruining crops and lives; driving up the cost of the food on your shelves and endangering coastlines, communities and lives.

We've known about it since the 1970s, but always put off acting. Now every year that goes by it becomes harder and more expensive to undo the damage, and more lives will be destroyed. We have to get our arses in gear now, and if the younger generations are taking the lead on this then they have far more common sense than the older ones. Please support them however you can.

https://act.friendsoftheearth.uk/sign-up/join-global-climate-strike

Meanwhile there's numerous other things we can do to campaign on this. While every one of us can and will be forced to make personal lifestyle changes, it's incredibly important that we work to hold corporations to account and demand government intervention. Every time you sign a petition, go on a march, attend a meeting, donate to a charity or contact your MP you are adding to a growing upswell that wants climate change put front and centre in politics. You can also use your vote to make it clear what matters; I'm a big fan of supporting the Green Party, on the principle that every single vote that goes Green is another reminder to the big parties that this issue is important, and the longer they ignore it the more votes they'll lose.

Going green doesn't have to be scary. Raising taxes on coal and oil, on huge corporations and the extremely wealthy to fund renewables (already a cheaper source of electricity in the UK than any other), build transport and infrastructure doesn't just give our children a crack at a healthy future, it also helps address vast social and economic inequality. We can seize control of this process and this debate now, and the more of us do, the better we can make it.

So please support the climate strike - and get campaigning!

Sweet Tooth In London

It is a Famous Fact, that I love cake.

As someone who doesn't drink alcohol, having cake is the main means through which I socialise with people. It is like going to the pub, only way more chocolatey. I also have the palette of a five-year-old. How much icing is the correct amount? All the icing. Just... all of it.

With this in mind, as a public service, here is some of my personal general cakey highlights in London....

Disclaimer - I do not actively seek out taste experiences like a true conoisseur. For all of my cakey love, I've still got stuff to do, places to be. As a result my list is fairly generic, which sorta reflects the way most people live their lives.

Belle Epoque (Upper Street/Newington Green). It is so good. It is expensive. (Expect to drop around a fiver on a slice, sigh.) It is tres French. The first branch opened on Newington Green back when the patch of green in the middle was still known as Needle Park. Things have changed a lot since then. Stoke Newington has become well vegan cafe/yoga studio. Belle Epoque arguably lead that charge, with its incredible concoctions of the Frenchiest kind. My personal favourite - the chocolate and raspberry cake, pure punishment to the aorta, pure delight to the senses.
Hummingbird Bakery (all over the place). Did I mention icing? I am fond of a proper bit of cupcake icing. Cupcakes went into fashion a few years ago as a massively cutesie thing to indulge in while being blond and backlit. I think that fad has passed somewhat, but some of the cupcake winners of that era - Hummingbird, Bea's of Bloomsbury and Lola's - still remain. Bea's specialises, as far as I can tell, in putting lots of sparkly bits on top of things. Lola's does hugely rich, somewhat more imaginative recipes. Hummingbird has a few solid staples that it just does well, and as someone who only occassionally commits cupcakes, I gotta respect that. However if you're looking for a sit-down place to get cakey on, then you'll probably want Bea's instead.
The British Museum. I don't understand afternoon tea. You pay a flipping fortune for small bits with little bits of stuff on the side. But if you gotta commit afternoon tea, then you could do a lot worse than commit it at the British Museum, 'cos, well... museums are great, and it's quite nice! Why go to the Ritz when you can do something that is, frankly, better? A pricier alternative (although it's already flipping afternoon tea, so clearly you're not concerned about budget vs. efficiency here) is afternoon tea in the Conservatory at the Barbican, because let's face it, tropical fruit possets in a haven of sheltered greenery in the heart of the city is pretty darn sexy. Just be aware you should book all this in advance.
Ben's Cookies (basically everywhere). When I worked in the video department at the National Theatre, I was given one big tip for a happy technical rehearsal: my boss loved Ben's Cookies. So at the start of a week of being trapped for twelve hours a day in a darkened room waiting on, heaven help us, the movement director to adjust a spear-carrier's left foot, I'd bring in cookies. Ben's Cookies are basically pure sugar with bits in, but they are served hot and gooey, and let's face it, sometimes that's just what you need.
Hotel Chocolat (also getting into lots of places). Yes, they do very expensive (albeit very nice) chocolates. But increasingly, they also have cafes that do expensive (but so nice!) hot chocolate and milkshakes. And my word, but they are good. I'd always suggest the darker options over the milky stuff, because my word, you can taste things going on in those wee cups that make you realise that cocoa is a concept you haven't really understood - until this day.
Scoop (Covent Garden). My Italian friend was, quite reasonably, an ice cream snob. So when I say that every year she had a birthday celebration in Scoop, it is truly a badge of honour and respect. She also didn't mind Amorino, mostly for their willingness to put seven flavours in one small cup; but Scoop was the gold standard to which all other gelato must bow.
Yorrica (Soho). When one of my vegan friends explained that there was such a thing as vegan ice cream, I was sceptical. When she took me to Yorica, I was in fact, grateful. For those who shun diary - you can do a lot worse.
That Churros Stand in Camden Lock. I don't know it's name. But it's that churros stand that you can find in Camden Lock. All praise be unto its fried and cinnamony goodness.
Dark Sugars (Brick Lane). It's a bit like Hotel Chocolat, only it sells stuff by the weight, and its hot chocolate is an indulgant, overflowing explosion of sweetness that can, I believe, even come in a chocolate cup, for that truly heart-stopping experience. There's actually two Dark Sugars on Brick Lane, but if you push through the crowds to the bigger one towards Hanbury St, you'll find a slightly uncomfortable chair with a view to gawk at the sacks and sacks of chocolatey treats, truffles and sugared fruits on offer.
Raj Mahal Sweets (Brick Lane). A few doors down from Dark Sugars, you will find Raj Mahal Sweets. The stickiest, sweetest, sugariest, most vibrantly coloured treats of the Indian sub-continent are lined up in glass counters to be thrown into a box for a remarkably reasonable price, along with the occassional freebie thrust your way with a cry of 'try this! It'll glue your teeth together' for the true enthusiast of all things sugary.
On a sugary note... without having one specific recommendation, as my favourite place closed a few years ago... head North up Green Lanes and you will encounter baklava. So, so much baklava. The baklava of Green Lanes is often sweeter and more full of honey and syrup than the more nutty baklava of Edgware Road and Shephard's Bush. Pick your preferences and travel accordingly.
Cafe Nerro (sometimes, everywhere). Most high-street cafe cake is thoroughly disappointing. Dry, tasteless, headache-inducing meh. But occassionally Cafe Nerro raises it's game with a not totally useless chocolate fudge cake, or a bit of lemon cheesecake that sometimes tastes of lemon. However quality is inconsistent, so if it looks dry and meh in the cabinet, odds are it is.
The pastel de natas of Brixton. There is a Portuguese community around the Brixton/Stockwell boarder. One of the many, many perks of this is that the quality of pastel de natas rises hugely, while the price declines. South Lambeth is particularly good for this golden confluence.
Konditor (again, sorta around). This nearly didn't make the list because, controversially, sometimes it's too sweet, or the wrong kind of sweet, even for my sweet tooth. But it does do a nice offer on brownies, and swirly-wirly cake is a really lovely gift to receive from people who don't know what to get you when they realise that you're teetotal.
Goswell Road Coffee (Goswell Road, but also I think a branch at Brick Lane wittily called Brick Lane Coffee). I don't understand coffee, but I am reliably informed by people who Know Their Stuff, that it does a dead good cuppa. For me, however, it is on this list for one thing, and one thing only - the salted cookie. It shouldn't be as hard as it is to find a good salted cookie.

Disappointing footnotes:

Euphorium Bakery. This smallish chain used to do the greatest chocolate tart in the west. It was pure crack in a shortcrust pastry. However changes in ownership has caused a massive decline in basically all their baked products, along with a steep increase in price. RIP, the finest tart in the West.
Paul/Patissery Valerie. My general rule of thumb is: if you need to add a merry tonne of cream onto something to make it work, then the thing you're trying to make work, probably doesn't work.
Gail's. They do a nice scone. Everything else is frequently over-priced and a bit tasteless. I cannot right now recall whether the scone is served properly i.e. with clotted cream and jam, or whether they attempt to charge extra, as horrifically some people do, in one of the greatest insults to the glory of British baked goods ever rendered.

 

Running London

I am learning to run longer distances. Oh god it sucks. But sometimes it doesn’t! And sometimes it especially doesn’t because London has some great running routes if you know where to look….

(Most of these will be north London, as that’s where I primarily run.)

The river. The Thames Path can carry you practically from Oxford to the sea, but for a more London-tastic run it’ll do you sterling service in the city too. On the north bank I’ve covered Strawberry Hill-Richmond, beneath huge hanging trees and along wide gravel tracks. Back from the road are large estates of houses where kids play in the street and the neighbours all know your name; along the muddy isles of the Thames are boat and barges moored in their own lost communities. At Richmond I usually move onto the south side (you can also spend many hours happily jogging through the great green of Richmond Park) and head east. The route takes you past Kew Gardens, the wetlands centre at Barnes, breweries and pubs (some of which kindly offer free toilets to weary wanderers) all the way to Battersea and beyond. You pass schools, under bridges, around rowing clubs, beside a pagoda, round the back of a helipad and only a few times are forced inland by the absurd developments of the super-rich. As you head into the centre, the Shard grows higher and drifts along the horizon with the turn of the path, and the houses grow denser, taller, more modern, 1800s Chiswick town houses with raised steps against flooding, yielding to 1990s apartments before you hit the sudden wall of tourists and food vans at Westminster Bridge. Here your pace has to drop as you wiggle through the queues for hot dogs and the London Eye, but once through you can turn your eyes further east. You also no longer need to check the tides before you run; high tide between Richmond and Hammersmith means the south side in particular is prone to flooding, though between Mortlake and Hammersmith there’s a perfectly decent northern path along the river too, with a slightly different, quiet residential/mildly modern/highly wealthy character to the more pubby, spacious southern bank.

Past the National Theatre and food stalls towards the red-brick Oxo Tower, the path continues east. There are more crowds to contend with in the tighter cobbled streets around Borough Market, as well as the smell of some truly tempting cooking, followed by the many tourists to HMS Belfast and Ken's Bollock - or City Hall, as it's less colloquially known - but soon you’ll hit Tower Bridge and be faced with a choice - North or South bank? With your next easy easterly crossing being many miles away at the Greenwich foot tunnel, (Rotherhithe Tunnel is very much an affair for cars, though pedestrians can brave the fumes) this choice will determine potentially the next hour of your jog. Go south, and new developments will often push you inland, but stone-quiet streets and bursts of greenery will create a lovely place to jog, until you’re forced to wiggle (not unpleasantly) through the winding residential quays of Canada Water and down onto slightly less lovely main roads for the final leg to Cutty Sark. The north side offers much of the same fare as the south - converted warehouses and flashes of Georgian charm, modernist apartments and cobbled and tarmac streets alike - but has been developed a little longer and offers the slightly easier, better signposted route.

At Greenwich, you can choose to head south up the hill or east towards Woolwich. Alternatively, if you stayed north then before you even hit the Greenwich foot tunnel, your route will take you through the financial skyscrapers of Canary Wharf (horrendous at rush hour, eerily silent on a Sunday) either to the low homes and wide greenery of Mudchute, or further east again into the developments still evolving towards Silvertown and City Airport. At the Thames Barrier, a park of contoured green clings to the waters edge, but be prepared to move through a landscape at once new and shiny, wasted and bleak.

Either way, this route on the northern side plops you in the vicinity of one of London’s other grand waterways - the canals. From Limehouse basin you can choose to either head north-east up through Bow to Stratford, or north-west towards Victoria Park. If you go to Stratford, the Olympic park and surrounding waterways are a fascinating mix of old and new, from canal-boat raves to the industrial monument of Three Mill Island, to the London stadium and wiggling waterways of the Lee Valley. Crossing beneath motorways you can pass anything from improptu raves in wasteland nobbles of land, to families out for a picnic on a jut of green where water meets, and even heading through Bow the spur of Victoria Park is still nearby to usher you into a land of farmer's markets, another pagoda, swans and playgrounds.

If you want to have your cake and eat it, you can turn south at Stratford through Hackney Wick, a still developing mass of new housing and old industrial workshops, and a few short minutes jog away reconnect with the beautiful green sprawl of Victoria Park, home to one of the best bonfire nights in London, framed by Georgian terraces and one of the largest green spaces in inner North London. At its southern lip you’ll rejoin the Regents canal on its journey up from Limehouse via the thin greenery of Mile End, and then head west. At London Fields you could divert into Hackney via Mare Street and Hackney Downs, or continue west to Islington. Continuing West, at Angel a famously long tunnel, the end just a pinprick of light, forces you onto the streets, and your pace will drop as you cross main roads and navigate round the stalls of Chapel Market, reconnecting with the path just before Caledonian Road. Here the canal carries you towards Camden past the swanky new development at Kings Cross, creating a mixture of the arty, the wealthy, the skint, the vegan, the smell of pot and the rattle of trains, all within a few hundred yards of each other. The old gasometres have been converted into fancy-pants new housing, but Camley Park nature reserve still stands beneath the rumble of the London-Paris train.

Your pace will drop again as you wiggle through Camden Lock, past the stands of burgers and halloumi, falafel and katsu curry, before you break out beneath the high, grand houses of Primrose Hill and Regents Park. If you feel barmy - I mean hearty - you can turn right at London Zoo and push up the hill all the way to Hampstead Heath, which one of the nicest places to run in London but is still my geographical nemesis. If you feel less barmy you can turn left instead, into the much flatter territory of Regent's Park, and join the joggers, footballers and cricketers enjoying a spring evening in summer. A loop here can carry you past a theatre, round a lake prowled by long-necked herons, and through rose gardens, spitting you out anywhere between Baker Street, Euston Square and Camden.

Failing that - onwards! All along the canal route there’s only one real threat to your wellbeing - barmy cyclists. And they’re only really a problem in the east end, at rush hour, where they hurl themselves down too-narrow towpaths, pedestrians be damned.

At Lisson Grove the canal boat moorings have Colonised the land with trailing flowers and pots of green filling the concrete, but it’s not long before private moorings force you onto narrow pavements faced by looming mansions with huge, dark windows as you head towards Little Venice. Here you have a choice again - turn right towards Kensal Rise and the beginnings of suburban residential/post industrial canals, or left down to Paddington Station, which again you can jog through, ticketless, to head to Hyde Park.

A bit like Richmond, Victoria and Regents Parks, as well as Hampstead Heath, Hyde Park is a gift unto itself. You could loop round it for miles at a time and still see something new, or use it to hop off into the fancy western streets of Mayfair or Knightsbridge, perhaps letting them pull you back towards the river. Fields of long grass; gardens of carefully cultivated blooms; the Serpentine Lake, long shaded paths of overhanging plane trees - in summer the quieter areas chitter with insects, in winter it roars with the sound of the fair.

If you got off the canal at Hampstead, a number of other options present themselves. An extension of green carries you all the way to Hendon, and from there you can look for the Capital Ring path that circles the whole city. It’s also a short jog from Hampstead into Highgate - although for my money a significantly shorter jog if you're coming down from Highgate, rather than climbing up from Hampstead. This leafy area of grandeur looms over the city below, and an abandoned railway line connects Highgate all the way down to Finsbury Park in a public path of overhanging green and empty platforms given over to nature and explorers. Cross Finsbury Park, and you can either head straight for a lap of Arsenal stadium, or detour a little east into the old reservoirs, now turned into a wetland centre, to add some distance to your route. Emerging from the reed-raised paths of the wetlands, it’s a short hop through back streets of Stanford Hill, past synagogue and bakery, to Clissold Park, following the tall spire of Stoke Newington Church if you're struggling to get your bearings. Past the deer and goats in their pens, the kids in the paddling pool, you can make a choice - to cut west through the quiet, red brick leafy backstreets of Highbury to the fields, crowned in barbecue smoke during the summer and young footballers every weekend, or to head down the thin strip of the New River with its ducklings and sunbathing terrapins to Islington.

Winding up back at Islington, you can follow the main road south towards the centre of town again. Sure, it's full of buses, it is at least downhill, and within a mile or so you can hit either the back streets of literary Bloomsbury, or the quiet lawyer-filled courtyards of the Inns of Court, beloved of historical film crews. From Greys Inn you can either wind back to Blackfriars via Middle Temple Inn, or to Waterloo and Covent Garden by Lincoln’s Inn, reconnecting again with the river, and if you’re anything like me, a well-deserved cake. Because seriously - you've jogged a long way already. CAKE. You totally deserve cake.

September 13th Birmingham!

Birmingham! I'm coming to say hello on September 13th courtesy of the lovely Birmingham Science Fiction Group! It'd be lovely if you're around; come knatter about geekery and books.

For more information visit: http://www.birminghamsfgroup.org.uk/

Hope to see you there!