Andrew Hook's Blog, page 23

Mmmm...Books!

Like a magpie to glittery things I am drawn to books...

We were on holiday for two weeks this month. The first week was spent in Yorkshire in a farm cottage near Scarborough and the second week with in-laws in Leicestershire but also spending three days in the Peak District. Whilst naturally sampling the local scenic delights, ice-cream, fish 'n' chips, and partially sunny climes, it was also a good opportunity to scour all the local charity shops and secondhand bookstores because - frank...

Do The Bandicoot

Nope - not a new dance, but a suggestion for a long-snouted animal from my beloved.

Bandicoots are a group of about 20 species of small to medium-sized, terrestrial marsupial omnivores in the order Peramelemorphia. They are endemic to Australia. The name roughly translates as pig-rat.

But - and of course more importantly - just look at the length of that snout!

Judging Book Covers

They say don't judge a book by its cover, which usually means if someone is physically ugly that doesn't mean that they are not pretty inside. Of course, the reverse is also true. The pretty can be ugly. But for this post I'm not really talking about people. I'm taking it literally. I'm talking books.

And of course, with books, most of us will judge the content by its cover.
Now, I don't know about you, but condensing the quality of around 100,000 words into one cover image which encapsula...

Long-snouted Hitler

Anyone reading this blog will know my affection for long-snouted animals. And I guess eventually it had to come to this:

http://meemsy.com/v/2774
I'm not sure how to embed a still of the video itself into this blog, so instead here's a picture of an aardvark. Just take a look at that snout!

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The Universe At Gun Point

I recently received my contributor copy of an anthology titled “The First Book of Classical Horror Stories” edited by DF Lewis containing my story “The Universe At Gun Point”. The remit for submissions was that the stories had to reference classical music or a specific composer, and the result is a collection of 21 stories including contributions from Rhys Hughes, Stephen Bacon, Aliya Whiteley, Rachel Kendall, Mark Valentine and others.
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An anthology containing music-themed stories isn’t a new...

Bande à part

The French film director Jean-Luc Godard has often been a major influence on my writing and way of thinking. I don’t always understand his movies – I don’t necessarily need to understand his movies – and sometimes I fall asleep, but invariably I come away from watching his films with a raging desire to write. As examples: I wrote the short stories “Ennui” after watching “2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle”, “Cinemad” after watching “Le Mepris”, and “Unchained Melody” after watching “Bande à par...

The Pig-Nosed Turtle

Continuing my affection for long-snouted animals here is the pig-nosed turtle:



It's a species of turtle native to the freshwater streams, rivers and lagoons of Australia and New Guinea and the only living member of its genus. The nose looks like that of a pig, having the nostrils at the end of a fleshy snout, hence the common name. Not the best angle in this photo I admit, but even so just look at the length of that snout!

The True Meaning Of Punk

I watched an old Arena programme about Poly Styrene yesterday evening, which has recently been re-broadcast. Sometimes it's hard to believe that punk happened 36 years ago. For a start, I remember being much older than the 9 years that I was. And of course, it seems like yesterday. Watching stuff from the past could be all about nostalgia, but X-Ray Spex are just as relevant now than they ever were. Songs about the bombardment of consumer products, questions of identity and genetic engin...

Life & Death

Maybe it's because I'm a writer but I always expect the unexpected. I watched the Woody Allen film "Midnight In Paris" recently, and wondered if some people would have doubted the main character's acceptance of the surreal situation in which he is plunged into the past. I didn't. And if such a thing literally happened to me then I know I would also accept it without question. Writers are embroiled in fantasy - they make things up on a daily basis and coincidence can easily be seen a...

The Hispaniolan Solenodon

I wasn't born - to my knowledge - with a specific love of long-snouted animals, but an interest in wildlife was bound to lead me there one day. This cultivation was hammered home when working at Norwich County Court from 1992 until 2005 where all sorts of nonsense took place involving myself, and others who will remain anonymous under psuedonyms such as Trunka, Uncle Oojah, and Broughty. A lot of this nonsense - some true, some false - is documented in my biography of the forgotten comic impr...