Caro Ramsay's Blog, page 7

Pic; is it over yet?

The Great Lord Lushfield experimenting with his flashing. By now I just wanted Marmite.

before the launch

Before it starts, with singer and songwriter CKB.

picture; the launch

the launch of blood of crows!

Friday and Saturday were back down to earth with a slap. ...

Friday and Saturday were back down to earth with a slap.  6 am starts. Cold and driech, autumn is well and truly here. The days past in a patient list full of caffeine and tiredness. I was not in Florence Nightingale mode, I was in the mode of my other great medical hero. Gregory House. 'It's patients who get in the way of treatment!'

Sunday was a confusing day, too many kids, too many dogs,  high heels, blisters, trouser legs too long. A  big charity do  that could be an all day affair, but sore feet and sore throat had not recovered  from the launch. The do was 40 miles away... and  I had to do my face.. and look human despite the lack of sleep.
I've seen other guest speakers turn up as if they have just finished mowing the lawn but it seems a little disrespectful, unless you are Alan Titchmarsh of course.

It was a ladies who lunch type of thing, lots of cleavage and flowers. (Not  mine. I do not posses the first and am allergic to the second.) But they tend to talk, a lot. As if they have been let out from somewhere after a period of captivity.  They are lovely and very welcoming, even the lady with the job that would normally  make me produce an AK 47  - a home economics teacher,  but she  was quite normal. I normally class them with Douglas Adams 'B' ark, ie the sort of people the world is better off without... Telephone sanitisers, Simon Cowell, Big Brother, anybody who says 'spelled the Gaelic way etc'

There is always a intrinsic difficulty in these events, the audiences  are an unknown quantity and indeed, quality.  My 'audience' know that they are  going to get a sad sick pervert giving them verbal shrapnel. Crime audiences  don't mind us talking about chopping up prostitutes or  nailing household pets to the neighbours door   and they  will laugh. We might be SSP but we are nice with it.

Talking to the general public is always slightly more difficult. People have paid a lot of money to have a nice afternoon, it might be a mistake to stick to the script if folk are getting scared.  Chris Brookmyre does not alter his style at all, what you see is what you get, usually with both barrels.  I don't mind  yielding a little. If  people have paid money to come along and  I am part of the deal, the deal is to entertain them.... and get money out them. Would I say that if my granny was in the audience?  If not then I will keep stumm.

They were all very nice ladies, even the HE teacher, all dressed as if going to a wedding,  some of them  hyphenated.  I very quickly got the impression that they were under the (wrong ) impression that I was a nice, chick lit writer, a bit kind of Colin Firth and Shades of Jane Austin.

Oh dear.

My fall back plan was to poke fun at Mensa ( a great crowd pleaser that one!)
Then address questions that I was casually asked  during the dinner. Folk are curious about writers. They like to know things!  They want to know how to kill their husbands, then they want to know how to get away with it.
The lady in charge of me ( there has to be one!) is from the  'north of England'. I am not good at accents  but I  would place her  somewhere between James Bolam and Cheryl Cole. We were running late so the raffle was in double quick time, she was desperately trying to say 'Yuille' 'Crainlarich and Achencouchen' and I was desperately trying not to laugh.   Maybe  we should just make the raffle a comedy double act.   If we vote for independence, I think she should be allowed to stay.

There was a bit where I did have to bite my tongue and dig my fingernails  into my palms to stop laughing.  I have a very weird sense of humour and will laugh at at the most inappropriate things.  I  have spent much  of my life around professional musicians, indeed HWMBI is one.  People never  think that they can stand up and sort out the Higgs Boson  unless they have studied physics, so why do people think they can play the drums or sing?  In here please just insert my usual rant about the X factor.  The X factor is a success because so few who think they can sing actually can.  They are usually tone deaf and have no friends to tell them the truth. Often what passes for singing is a noise that can be auto tuned to sound less like a cat having a hysterectomy.  And there is a narrow range of song they feel is acceptable. Which is worse than a shame.

So after  my wee bit, a young girl got up to sing us a couple of songs. This was fine. She could sing.  She could hold a tune. She had a beautiful lyrical very pure voice..... so why did she sing along to a crap backing CD with crap backing vocals?  At that point... with her standing behind a lectern, nodding at the instrumental break with no guitarist to look at during the guitar solo, I just got a bit French and Saunders.

She had a great voice, we were on the banks of the Bonnie Doon.   I think one of the greatest song writers in the world had a wee ready made song for her there, a melody that is so beautiful it is tear jerking.  She could have done it unaccompanied, I think she is that talented.  So why did she sing that American shit?

However all that is just a personal opinion. It was a great day,  the committee worked very hard to make a success of it. Action For Medical Research is the best known charity that nobody knows anything about, they just politely go on  their way raising money.  And the research they make possible and the medical advances they fund are well  documented and worth every penny donated.  I've been in practice for 28 years and I see, in my lifetime, the difference that this charity has made to the public profile of conditions Rett's syndrome.  It is good stuff, check out the website.

They used to be ' help a  crippled child' - remember the wee boy collecting box that used to stand outside shops with a polished head as every body patted him as they walked by... and put money in. They are still much loved, and cherished. Probably to the annoyance of the PC nazis.  There was one such collecting box outside the fish mongers in Paisley Road West. I would not go in because of the kipper eyes ( still freak me out, the eyes of dead fish). I would stay outside and my gran would give me an old thrupence to put in the box to help the wee kiddies. I'd stand and chat away to him, waiting.  I think some times, I even heard him talk back. But I was only five at the time.

I think there might be a short story there!

Caro

the big day!

When  I was normal, before I was a published author, I thought that publication day would go like this;

One would rise to birdsong, the sun would be shining, the sky would be blue and my hair would sit right.  I would sink into a hot bath full of bubbles and swan around doing bugger all as bluebirds flew round my head in a disneyesque manner. I would wear a silk dressing gown when I opened the door to receive the bouquets of flowers being sent from grateful publishers, agents, acolytes etc.
I would spend the day being generally marvellous, eating handmade chocolates and sipping champagne, then I'd get dressed, everything would fit, my feet would slip into my shoes as if they were made of glass. Then a car would come for me and I'd be driven into town, where my adoring fans would wave as they waited outside Waterstones for me. I would be witty, erudite and fantastic and I would not swear. The queue to buy books would be out the door and the supply would be plentiful. My pen would not run out and I would not get RSI in the right wrist. Somehow I would lose any medical qualification that I ever had and my handwriting would become legible. I would leave them begging for more, I'd get back into the chauffeur driven car and be taken home, there would be no roadworks outside ASDA. The house would be warm and cosy, the pitbull would not run away with her friend Mr Fox. There would be toast and Marmite and a big comfy bed.

The reality was out of bed at 6am, dog out, met Jack Shit (cross between jack russell and a shit zu) and his mum who was nice... but I was watching the clock. Then I met the obnoxious woman, who always looks at pitbull as though she is an illegal immigrant with ebola. The pitbull just gave her a dismissive look but we had to stand back from the path while she wandered past with her pedigree rat.
Cleaned the cat hair out the bath, etc dressed and packed bag as can't spend all day in good shoes and  BBC radio want me in the middle of Glasgow at half ten.  Had to drive car laden with wine, glasses, water and orange juice to Glasgow and park as close to Waterstones as I could. Then swing around the railings in Blytheswood Square as the linen cupboard in the hotel was too noisy for the recording. Alex Grey persuaded me to do secret things that I cannot blog about but it has a sherlock feeling about it.  Chris Brookmyre and I chatted about the Borrheid mafia.  Then went to M and S for a coffee, it was empty, peace, quiet then  woman with screaming child came in and sat at the table next to me... the kid screamed and screamed. I am allergic to children- when they come near me they come out in bruises.
 Then I was sick.
 Then I had to redo my makeup  but I had my trowel with me so that was OK.
Then to Waterstones for filmed interview with Daily Record ( Google Caro Ramsay chapter and verse 2012 if you want to see it), John is making me laugh, asks me the same question twice and we are trying to ignore the small crowd behind the camera. I was determined not to use the phrase 50 shades of grey, but I did.
 Then the faithful PA arrived, laden with bookmarks and receipts. James from Waterstones produced a trolley and we pushed it up and down Sauchiehall street laden with boxes of glasses and Pringles, two blondes trying to bounce it up and down the kerbs. Did we drop any ? Nope! I think we were a bit too conscious of the £90 deposit which I promised HWMBI could spend on chocolate raisins in B&M stores if he washed all the glasses. He didn’t really mind the washing, it was the taking them back to Silverburn on the Saturday that required Cofe Annan type of negotiation.
Back at Waterstones the PA and I hid in cupboard and got changed, before we went out and put out the 200 glasses, the wine, the juice, the Pringles. People started arriving ( no bus).. my pal arrived with tears in his eyes having got the all clear from nasty things just that day. So we had a hug, then he saw somebody else he knew and hugged him. Then joe bloggs appeared and he gave me a hug thinking that was the done thing. Still no bus.
The place was filling up... can we get started said the Waterstone’s guy. He looked a bit concerned when I told him that the bus was not here...yet.
Then they arrived, wandering down the stairs in a dazed and confused way, like slightly pissed Zombies  ( they had been singing on the bus) The bus was more than a bit late,  then somebody  got locked in the loo. I had put out reserved seats for a pals with mobility issues - I had printed them out on the back of a friends edit. Little old lady sits down, turns over  paper and reads the words ..".'F... off you cow,' she said." Much hilarity.
The BBC lady was interviewing folk, including my 82 year old friend who could easily have said...'Well I do like Caro's books but like books with much more sex in them.'
Then I started... so I finished as Magnus would say.  The Mensa folk turned up an hour late and got confused between the queue to buy books and get books signed, after the shop closed they were escorted away by an off duty cop in case they could not find their way to the street.
Sore hand, pen ran out, lost my good pen, couldn't spell any of the Gaelic names and Waterstone’s ran out of books.
The hotel did us proud in the end and the bus took the home team away, pissed and happy, singing Achy Breaky heart all the way back to the small fishing village on the Clyde.  I received two thank you cards... to be passed onto the bus driver.
I got home... sixteen trips in and out the car to empty it of all the detritus of the day, the various furry ones sat and watched me, heads moving from side to side like they were watching Murray V Federer. It was well past midnight by the time  I was finished.
Then I collapsed in a heap,  it was cold, there was no toast and no marmite.
Now I understand Michael Jackson.
He turned to drugs due to lack of Marmite!

the day before the day before the day..

It has all been a little fraught as you may have gathered, every blog I have typed has been full of expletives and unpublishable. But now, after the event, after the big day that was today, we are all back to normality and nobody died.  This is five days after the first attempt at this blog... at some point I was staggering up the street at one AM, having lost my shoes, my voice and the will to live.  And perfectly sober I may add.At this moment, when a degree of normality returned, I am lying under the dog and the duvet, sipping red wine and trying to get warm.  So now, kiddiewinks, I will transport you back to the Tuesday before the BIG DAY.
 It was an effing disaster of a day.
 I was treating the patients as usual, they seemed to sense all was not well and bore more gifts that usual- the croissant were almond crusted, the sandwiches had mayo and not salad cream. The FPA was trying to firm up arrangements for the launch- arrangements that were already in place and were all moved a month forward as publication date changed.... then... well,  the FPA was trying to keep control of her bowels  as the day wound down from bad to worse.
 We opened the boxes of books that had been delivered from the publisher... there were a few missing....well 33% missing. No copies at all of one of the books. And I had a major charity event on Sunday... and they need the books to sell. My poor editor only came back from holiday on Monday and we have done nothing but moan at her.... another few emails.
Lots of coffee and almond croissants!
 Then the FPA phoned the hotel. They had lost the booking. Her face went pale, and I think she stopped breathing.  I think as her lungs collapsed, her bowels went into over drive. She didn’t tell me at that point, she asked the young lady, very pointedly to PHONE me BACK WHEN YOU HAVE FOUND IT. Or die. I think was the subtext.
The girl did find it eventually and she was very apologetic, but by then the FPA was on life support. We did ask what would have happened if 100 Glaswegians had walked in looking for free booze and no function room was ready for them... oh we would have sorted out something she said.
Well good luck with that one pal!
Hiring room? Can we have one table, loads of chairs? How many chairs round how many tables? She said. Only one table, but a lot of chairs- they will move them around as they want? Yes, but how many tables do you want in the room?
 More than zero, less than two.
Why are they so many numpties in employment when there so many unemployed.  My pal had a border collie that would have grasped the situation quicker.
 But she was honest enough to admit it when the booking email was eventually found and the FPA was jump started by an adrenaline injection right into the cardiac muscle. Less than honest were Tesco, Sainsbury and some other glass hire lot. Unbelievably wrong on everything they said on the phone and then deny that that was what they said. Twenty pounds is not sixty pounds as they tell you.  Or was it forty?   So you want 300 glasses? Well we have twelve. Yes but on the phone you said you had 300. The response to this is a blank stare. And 12 glasses.
Ok said, faithful PA? Please give us twenty bottles of wine and three hundred straws.Or a horse trough and they can just sort themselves out.
Maybe if I was a member of Mensa I would be oblivious.
Some of the guests seem to be mistaking the complimentary bus for the hokey cokey. They are in, then they are out.   Very confusing if you are the Bold Oscarina with the clipboard and the microphone. Her job was that Falklands thing of counting them out and counting them home.
There was one ray of sunshine. A patient had got hold of an advance copy of Blood Of Crows, started it at 8pm, and then read it until the wee small hours, he was enjoying it so much. And he was a wee bit scared so he thought he had better read on. He finished it in matter of hours, he said it was my best yet, real thrilling thriller. And I didn’t even owe him money.
Ps, he wasn’t a member of MENSA either.

three days to go

'He'  has been looking on  the internet. He thinks that we do not have enough cute animals in the the house. This is what HWMBI gets up to while I am at work. I come home to the dog eating pizza in bed and the cat sitting in a box in the front room, glowering.  HWMBI was looking at skunks as pets, red pandas as pets and  ferrets as pets.  And falabella ponies as house pets. ( see previous blog about crap on the carpet!) He thinks that any thing remotely furry is a good pet... the fuzzier the fur the better. He probably thinks that Chewbacca  would be nice to walk round the park on a Sunday morning and would enjoy frightening the purple rinse COS brigade. Chewbacca would be easier to deal with than the Pit Bull when she meets Handsome Harry the flat coat, he is the Peirce Brosnan of dogs and the pit bull, the Anne Widdicome of dogs. She hates him with a passion. He  does not seen to realise that she is not actually playing hard to get, she really will bite off his reproductive organs, chew them up and spit them out. But on he comes,  The Handsome Harry, waggling his bottom and his tongue hanging out the side of his big silly mouth.  The pitbull always waits until he is within striking distance and she never misses. I'm not sure if it is  his daft smiley face that upsets her, his very good pedigree or the fact that he wears a red velvet collar, but something about him upsets her.
Imagine how HWMBI would behave if he was taking a ferret out for a walk.    There would be bunny massacre,  Watership battlefield.  It would be like alien versus predator but very close to the ground.
Worked usual 12 hour shift, got chatting to a few folk about problem pets. I knew about the attack donkey who lives in a farm yard.  Drive in there, stay in your car and sound your horn. There is no point in keeping your eye on the manky alsation, it's the wee donkey creeping up behind you that will kill you. The donkey is called Rosie I think, those that know her call her psychodonkey.  Sounds like a seaside cover version of a Talking Heads song.

There is a cute ferret, Minky who is a bit of a scoundrel. She went ..through the vent for the tumble dryer, in and out the pipe, then ripped it apart and got into the cavity walls, ran all over the house, builders bill for £500 to try and find the wee sod. By then she had chewed all kinds of wires and had a great time.

The prize had to go to  Penfold. Penfold was left in the house . The woman said to the heating engineer that she would have to go out  to post a letter and that he would be OK with Penfold. She went out, Penfold decided that he was not happy and went on the offensive. He attacked, biting the engineer in the face and  and hands. The heating engineer ran from the house face bleeding.  Penfold is a macaw. About £1500 of macaw.

65 emails came into today but they will have to wait. Too tired, will have to wrestle the pit bull from the duvet before I can use it. And shake it free from pizza crumbs.

Caro

4 days to go

Well the  MFB ( mighty figbane... is his wife henbane? ) has come up trumphs with a website, that took me to another website and ended up with a website called my favourite sweeties! Like old proper sweeties.  There I found two that had kept me awake all night worrying  - the Pyramid Bar  and the Cracknel bar.
The pyramid bar was a chocolate pyramid filled with mint fondant, the Cracknel bar was  a slim, rather elegant dark chocolate that used to sit in a little cardboard sleeve so  you had to slide it out to eat it. Or eat the cardboard as well. Which I often did.
The inside was green methol/minty icicles  and a bit..snappy!
They were great.
 Somebody emailed me to say that they are still available  in South Africa. Have posh friend  who has a timeshare on a game reserve -she shares it with some impala. Might ask her to bring me some back next time.That reminds me of the old joke - give me a home where the buffalo roam and I will show you a house full of cow shit.
The bar six question has been answered due to the MFB and I know two members of the writers group that will be very pleased at that. Some of the writers group have to be kept happy/ sedated/ on a register other wise things can get a little out of order.   They are great , but slightly weird. talented but in no way arrogant. Criticism is given and received, no holds barred then we have coffee and tablet.. or coffee and tablets.. in some cases. It is a big strange on the ears when two lovely little old ladies start discussing the merits of the pointy pervert...( kind of cross between Benny Hill and that wee Red creature that inhabits Venice in don't look now. The thing I found most frightening about that film was Donald Sutherland's perm, after that the pervert was a dawdle!)    And two highly respected accountants start talking about the best torture to do with a broken  snooker queue and a snooker table. I suggested a surgical latex glove might be best deployed there. This sort of thing is the best reason to distrust accountants.
Did try to look out some clothes today for Thursday.. but they were put away some where safe and I have no hope of finding them- that'll be that high IQ thing again.
Edited another 100 pages of book, it goes really well  running through the pages, then I hit a sticky section that reads really clunky- and needs to be half the word count. That takes about ten minutes per page. And that is without a Dorito break.
Got an email from a fan who was carrying her husband a tray of breakfast up to bed with the newspapers on it. He was lying there.  Opened the paper and jumped out his bed. 'It's Caro,' he said... 'There in the paper. I can't be naked in front of her!'   Answers on a postcard to me about that one.
Meanwhile, it was very cold today for what is technically still summer. The MFB will be glad to know that the pItbull has it's own fire on with a huge cushion in front so that she can toast herself as winter draws in. That's Daily Record Devil dogs for you!

Me

brain fried , Day 6 is it? no 5!

Patient with bad sinus trouble asked me to put my hand on her sphincter. Mmmmm. As this had helped her sinus to drain last time I did it.

Sphincter? I askedYes, here she answered, pointing to her head.Sphenoid, I said.I knew it began with a C, she said. And lay down.
That lady is very bright, a very bright human being indeed. But scatty and happy with it. She's delightful, mega intelligent who knows she can't find her own arse with a map but it does not concern her. She is shit hot at her very demanding, very worthwhile job. So...... I did my talk to Mensa in the afternoon.
Did not know what to expect. I know three members of Mensa. wouldn't let any of them walk my dog.

My hyper intelligent friend (slightly useless but aware it PhD person)  phoned to ask how I got on.  Mensa is outdated  he said,   society needs functioning intelligence in the species, and that comes in many different forms. People are rightly dismissive of those who claim to be bright but can't walk and talk at the same time. Well I think that was what he said but I  was dipping Doritos at  the time  and you have to have some sense  of proportion.
 Intelligence might not be a linear thing but might be spokes radiating out from a central point.  The creative genius go north, the spreadsheet anoraks go  south and all of mankind is in here or there.

I did ask a few patients about Mensa, answers varied but nobody had a good word to say. Not that anybody knew much. I had done some research about them but failed to see the point. Their PR is obviously done by MI6 .  The conversation went along the lines of .'well why would you join it?'  I have better things to do with my time.  If I want to speak to like minded people I'll speak to the CWA, the FIMLS, SSR and the MJWG . (crimewriters, forensic people, scottish staffie rescue etc) Why would I want  to speak to somebody I might have nothing in common with, apart from an ability to recognise a sequence of prime numbers? It's a strange tie to bind by.  Maybe in todays world, that IQ label is a barrier, as everybody else is too busy getting on with it. 
Are they stuck in a intellectual time warp?  I am hugely intelligent when interested (  diagnosis) ,  thick as shit when  not. .. tax returns.  My accountant marvels at my brain, I marvel at his. Neither is superior, we are just different. Each to their own, you wouldn't run Mo Farrah in the 100 metres.


My pal left school with one O' grade, at the age of 34 he got his PhD. It wasn't IQ that held him back, it was being poor. 
So I didn't know  what to expect,  but whatever it was, it wasn't what I got.Kind of lovely but strange, like old geography teachers. Those very liberal left wing geography teachers where  nothing ever gets done as  everything is discussed ... but bugger all decided. I've always believed in benign dictatorship. Somebody has to have a steady hand on the helm. Even on board the Titanic.
They were talking about a lack of funds and a lack of membership. Now bearing in mind that I was an onlooker, listening and ingesting I might be  being totally unfair and I might be being so in this entire blog but... then, if they want to draw in new membership, what did I see?No idea, but in the little snippet I saw there was a lack of cohesion and direction, a sort of wooly circular thinking.  I think most folk were elsewhere, doing something else. They had two great speakers.  One was on the website, great girl, good analysis of Lolita/edits/ rewrites.. did Nabokov basically write the same book more than once? Really interesting stuff.  The other speaker was not mentioned.  I'm doing a non-crime event  next month, sold out 200 seats. Scottish book of the month. Seven national newspaper interviews, three national radio interviews lined up.  Not even a mention on the website.  Was that because as a mere crime writer I was not worthy??  
That does say something about their advertising and how they promote what they have.
But one by one, they were lovely. I thought I would get lively intellectual debate but only a mild ... oh no you don't, oh yes you do. type argument.    I was right of course but didn't want to press the point.  My Swedish background was  tipping the balance in my favour. If they had been bright  and conniving, instead of just bright,  they would have researched their guest and known better with that one!I did chortle in a high IQ score but even higher psychopath score kind of way...Food for thought.Doritos are the best food for thought.Whatever happened to Bar 6's? Any body know? Was it the EEC? 
Me 

day six and still counting

Hi

It was a kind of normal day today. Well normal for me. The main talk  amongst the patients was Anders Breivik, his 'sane' verdict had just come through this morning. Opinions range from he's obviously mad as  a sane person would never do that to.. it really doesn't matter if he is sane or not just lock him up. But we hope that will be an end to it all, he's another manipulating psychopath and the Norwegian courts have done a great job in not allowing him the space to spout his right wing views. And the relatives of the victims have been so dignified in their grief. It makes me think that revenge is not part of their psyche, but justice is.

Meanwhile Peter Robinson ( tall, well built, slightly balding) was on the TV this morning, I missed it but he was on at Harrogate when I was there, wearing a very nice leather jacket on stage.  He was on late at night and I  was tired and my contacts lens were a bit  fusty. The next day,  I was  in the lift of the holiday inn, and in gets  a man, ( tall, well built, slightly balding ) with a very nice leather jacket on. Oh I thought, I am standing in the lift with Peter Robinson. We walked across the foyer together, he let me go through the revolving doors first.  Then we did that embarrassing thing of walking stride for stride .. going to the same destination about ten minutes away ( the swan hotel in Harrogate - famous for being the hotel that the Sainted Agatha did a runner to).  I asked him if he was enjoying Harrogate, he paused before saying  'yes'.
 I asked him if he enjoyed the event yesterday. There was a pause and he said 'yes'
 By this time I was thinking that he might be very hung over.
I started again by commenting on the nice flowers in the ornamental gardens  as we strolled past, still stride for stride. There was a long pause, he looked at the gardens, then said 'yes'.
At this point I concluded he was deaf, there was just that pause when somebody hard of hearing computes what they have heard compared to what they thought they heard.
I said Harrogate was very twee.
 He asked me what Twee meant.
I realised that not only was he not Peter Robinson, he was not even English.
 He explained that he was a Norwegian Translator- he translated Me ( he recognised me  and he had known who I was from the minute he got in the lift) He did George Pelicanos and Dennis Lehane. And he  translates Peter Robinson. 'he is a good pal, ' He explained, 'yesterday, on stage he borrowed my jacket.'
At one o'clock that morning, he was very drunk, as was my German editor, trying to do the quiz and arguing about what kind of dog  Columbo had. It was Pythonesque!.. I know - do you?

Came home to HWMBI reliving his mis spent youth by watching The Tomorrow People on DVD with the cast commentary on, it's hysterical.  If you are too young to know who The Tomorrow People are, just think of Dr Who  made by the cooncil  with special effects by John Noakes and Shep.  Shep being the talented one at the sticky back plastic. In this exciting episode-  the Klu Kluz Klan are  drilling to the centre of the earth as an extra from Sarah Brightman's video for  'I lost my heart to a star ship trooper' is trying to stop them. I think they want to take over the world or jump the methadone queue or something. Maybe they are trying to find an adult to use the scissors.  At the moment a girl wearing pants and thigh length leather boots is smoking a hubble bubble pipe with far too much blusher on ( the girl not the pipe but the show  is lit like 1972 Top of the pops all halogen green and pork pie pink), What has she to do with the actual plot? No idea.   Don't think the writers had much idea either.

Going to cheer myself up by editing the book and flinging a dead body off the rest and be thankful.  well somebody has too!  For the Americans reading the 'rest and be thankful' is a long slow hill in Argyll,  drilled out the hillside.  It is an ancient drovers road.. and it is Ronseal. It does  what  it says on the tin - you rest and are thankful.

Caro