Twice over the past few days, writer friends, who are working on features for the national press, have contacted me. What’s going on in south Norfolk? they have asked. Tell me all about the Waveney Valley. ITV News was in Bungay the other day for a profile of the area. Journalists are hanging around the… Continue reading HOW ODD IT IS TO BE INTERESTING – some notes from a former political wilderness
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A couple of weeks ago, Georgie Grier, a comedian at the Edinburgh Fringe, posted a plaintive message on Twitter (or whatever its Musky name is now – Cross, is it?). There had been an audience of one at her show the previous night, she reported sadly, closing with a tearful ‘It’s fine, isn’t it? It’s… Continue reading My one-woman show: what I learned in Edinburgh
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I have difficulty thinking of Martin Amis as an old man, let alone a dead one. The work of his middle years was so spectacular and unforgettable, such a breath-taking high-wire act, that it has somehow made what followed seem little more than a slow fade. In recent years, I have glanced at Amis’s later… Continue reading Smart Mart: the high-wire act that fell to earth
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The papers have been full of reviews and interviews with the author Julie Myerson, who has written a novel which is, according to the Sunday Time, ‘a bold two-fingered salute to her attackers a few years back.’ I have a feeling that might include me. Back in 2009, I was caught up in a minor,… Continue reading JULIE, JEREMY AND AN ODD KIND OF FAMILY SAGA
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‘This, here, now, is what happiness is. Enjoy it.’ So wrote the poet Wendy Cope, welcoming the publication in 2002 of A Life Drawing, an illustrated memoir by the great Shirley Hughes whose death was announced this week. At a moment in our history when happiness feels like an elusive and distant thing, the work… Continue reading The artist of happiness – remembering Shirley Hughes
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It has been clear-out time. I have been off the booze, filing the accumulated correspondence of the past three years, tidying up anything within reach. I have become a crashing bore, in fact. And it will be worth it, this great purge of the house with a January enema (anyone who thinks this metaphor is… Continue reading How many books really ‘spark joy’? Damned few….
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Recently, I’ve taken to writing songs in a field. There, well away from human habitation, I’m lucky enough to have an old gypsy caravan (or, to be less romantic and more accurate, an old road-workers’ wagon). It is not the last word in comfort but, vibe-wise, it can’t be beaten. It’s isolated. When I work… Continue reading Introducing… Songs From the Van
Read moreThe BBC bigwig was shouting at me. Every time I started to speak in the debate, he came barrelling in, objecting and refuting. The audience of writers gathered in the lecture hall seemed, rather to my surprise, to be on his side. After repeated interruptions, I said with mild exasperation that I was very glad… Continue reading An ill-fated journey into the world of TV writers (contains sex and violence)
Read moreA month’s unopened post awaits. There are red bills to pay. As for the emails… But they can wait a few more minutes. Returning too quickly to real life after almost a month of submersion in the Edinburgh Fringe can give a you bad case of the bends. For the past 26 days, the all-important… Continue reading My month on the Fringe: an end-of-term report
Read moreThis is not where I saw my career leading. I am standing at the gates of the Edinburgh International Book Festival in Charlotte Square. To my right, a middle-aged Asian man is selling the Big Issue. To my left a woman is standing behind a trestle table offering a free book with every copy today’s… Continue reading Some slightly bitter thoughts on the snobbery of writers and readers
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