every day should be a susie day

Rest In Nidd, Humph

Posted on 26. Apr, 2008 by susie in big woo, biscuits and lies, books i've been reading, films, kids' books i've been reading, telly

He’s been introduced on stage with the words ‘Yes, he’s still alive…it’s Humphrey Lyttelton!’ for so long, it seems impossible that he now isn’t.

Forget cups of tea, kings and queens, fish and chips (or endless rain, endemic alcoholism, and teenage pregnancy): I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue is the true symbol of Britishness. When Gordon Brown suggested we needed a motto to rival France’s ‘liberte, egalite, fraternite’ he should have looked no further than the 30+ years of Radio 4’s antidote to panel games. Brains, Filth, Silliness: that’s Blighty. (I’d settle for ‘Bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia!’, though.)

I remember my glee when I first looked at a Tube map, and discovered Mornington Crescent actually exists. I can’t hear the word ‘punt’ without recalling Barry Cryer reducing a theatre to mirthful mush, without ever needing to reach the punchline. Thanks to Willie Rushton, in my mind Hamlet’s ‘To be or not to be, that is the question’ will forever be sung to the tune of ‘A you’re Adorable’. And Humph’s own contributions – wearily deriding the panel, the audience, the games themselves – pricked the possible balloon of smuggery, on the comedy programme of fate.

I just hope that Samantha can cope all right without him. In her honour, some greatest hits: Girlfriend in a Coma to the tune of Tiptoe through the Tulips, and some of the gent himself from 2006.

Red: the Next Generation of American Writers, edited by Amy Goldwasser (hardback: essays). This is a peach of a dip-into book: a collection of essays on everything from terminal illness to fangirling Johnny Depp, from ‘a generation, perhaps the first, of writers’. It’s grand proof that all the blogging, social networking, texting and gossiping teenagers do instead of their homework has inherent value. They’re not just giving an insight into the familiar petty distractions of teenage angst (although they do that spectacularly); these are writers, showing off how much they already know about structure, pace, how to use wit or shock to manipulate the reader. And some of them are only 13. We old fart fictioneers had better watch our backs. (Incidentally, I don’t know of anything similar that exists in the UK. Anyone else? It’s quite a tempting idea, if not…)

I’m in the keyboard-hammering stage with Biscuits & Lies: one day it’s going swimmingly, the next I dream of throwing it all out of the window and starting again. A first draft needs to exist before I can edit it into something less humiliatingly terrible, but it’s still frustrating to know how much of my still-puny word count is delete-worthy guff. (Today is a ‘throw it out of the window’ day: can you tell?) I’ve finally pegged the key difference between the main characters in Big Woo and B&L, though: Big Woo’s serafina is fixated on how messed up she is; B&L’s heroine has absolutely no idea. Now, if only I could find a way to respond to the note I’ve got pinned up above the laptop: NEEDS MORE JOKES.

Breaking myself horribly through yoga; becoming obsessed with The Apprentice, even though the last three firings have made no sense whatsoever (Lucinda FTW!); watching Atonement (good enough to distract from La Knightley and her Amazing Performing Back, even: remarkable); watching There Will Be Blood (possibly good in theory: could not stand it); avoiding chocolate, with great sadness.

Sighted: the Lesser Spotted Bigwoo

Posted on 24. Mar, 2008 by admin in big woo, biscuits and lies, books i've been reading, films

Despite not being officially released into the wild until April 7th, eagle-eyed genius MG has spotted this rare bird in Oxford Waterstone’s. Quick, someone call Bill Oddie!

The Lesser Spotted Bigwoo is by nature quite timid, but its magnificently shiny plumage should make it easy to locate. If in doubt, apparently look for it amidst books about cake. And geese. (Yep, I’m in the Cake & Geese section. Who knew?) And do please report any further early sightings of this fine fowl: it’s quite exciting seeing it on a shelf like that…

Then We Came To The End by Joshua Ferris (adult, contemporary). Office workers at a failing ad agency trundle through their mundane lives, which are shared through a collective voice. I haven’t come to the end yet, however, so I’m not in any position to pass judgement: so far file under ‘interesting conceit, but actually quite uninvolving’.

Musicals! Everyone loves musicals, right? Right? *looks hopeful*

Finally getting round to watching Die Hard 4 (liked the way they didn’t bother pretending it was in any way related to the other films: didn’t like the startling chunk of misogyny and racism that was applied to one character); eating very fine tortilla (and salmon, and risotto, and cheese, and actually I’m quite full just thinking about it); wondering why The Great Escape isn’t on.

UNEXPECTED SPORT

Posted on 15. Mar, 2008 by admin in big woo, biscuits and lies, books i've been reading, films, telly, the rugby isn't it

(For those living under a rock/on the wrong continent, that’s Ryan Jones, Captain of the Welsh rugby team, celebrating our glorious grand slam in the Six Nations. He looks quite happy, y?)

Sport is mostly a dull thing to me. I was your typical specs ‘n’ textbook brainiac in school, and PE lessons rolled around on the timetable like a twice-weekly Room 101, performed in bri-nylon hotpants. The only time I ever threw a javelin, it went backwards. Hurdles, being at the approximate height of my armpits, were a bit of a challenge. I did make the school hockey team, but as goalie, a position where the only skill involved is intimidating the opposition by wearing really enormous clown shoes. Watching sport therefore tends to reduce me to a pimply-legged shivering 14-year-old, attempting to do cross-country half-naked through the streets of my home town to the sonorous hooting of passing cars.

But not rugby. It’s not a sport in Wales, not really: it’s a fandom. You buy the shirt; you argue about the team selection, favourites, past glories; you bellow like a loon at the telly, as if volume alone can spur your heroes on to glory, and then dissect and revisit and delight. It’s like Doctor Who, only with really muscular thighs.

For me, too, there’s a whopping chunk of nostalgia: going into Cardiff on match days to mooch round the shops and soak up the atmosphere, then home to line up on the sofa and holler (with a half-time cake to soothe nerves). The real joy is that I grew up watching the 80s, when we were mostly crap. And now? Well, look at Ryan’s face. :D

I keep failing to babble properly about Scarlett Thomas’s The End of Mr Y – partly because I’m not sure I can describe it. It’s a university novel: Ariel, impoverished student, is writing a PhD on ‘thought experiments’ in philosophy and literature while conducting an inappropriate affair and trying not to starve to death. It’s a book within a book: The End of Mr Y is a deeply obscure Victorian novel, said to curse anyone who reads it. It’s a sci-fi fantasy with bonus time-travel: the cursed novel isn’t fiction, but a key to a parallel world. It’s a thriller with evil agents and death threats, a romance, a genuinely complex and thought-provoking reflection on relationships, on time, on selfhood. It’s twelve books at once, and yet it never for a moment feels muddled or overstretched. Fascinating, intelligent, witty, brain-breaking – all the good things. I loved it. (I’m told by several that her PopCo is equally good: one for the Big List Of Things To Get Round To Reading.)

Biscuits & Lies progresses in lurches rather than leaps and bounds, but progress is progress. I’m still having fun with it, anyway (it’s reached the ‘Susie makes herself get some work done by coming up with stupid jokes’ stage, which is quite fundamental to my working routine). Publication of Big Woo (April 7th! That’s actually quite soon!) continues to impend. I’m still working on The Website, but all will be unveiled once there’s some ‘all’ to unveil. In the meantime, the US bound proof (a pre-publication version they send out to drum up interest) has already got a few bloggers Stateside talking, and in glowing terms too. Woo!

Suspecting my house is trying to kill me (ceilings falling down, microwaves on fire: Coming Soon: LOCUSTS!); watching Sunshine (an interesting take on the ‘people trapped inside a spaceship’ genre – but what the hell is the glittery gold spacesuit all about? Did no one tell the costume guys that the official colours of space travel are white and silver?); painting my fingernails Incredible Hulk green.

Blue is the colour

Posted on 11. Feb, 2008 by susie in big woo, books i've been reading, kids' books i've been reading

Hurrah! According to the Grauniad, the blue Smartie is set to make a comeback. The blue smartie is undeniably king, just as the brown M&M is a shoddy waste of time. The blue smartie might be hiding unknown Wonkaesque strangenesses beneath its shiny suit. The brown M&M will never contain anything but chocolate.

Which reminds me: why oh why did they discontinue these? It’s a surprise, and some chocolate, and a really pathetic model of a crocodile on a lilo. Oh, hang on, that was Kinder eggs. Same weird mixture of different types of chocolate, though. M&S have stopped doing their layered thing with dark, white and milk all at once, I see. Am I the only one that likes these things?

Finally finished The Joshua Files: Invisible City by MG Harris (10+, contemporary adventure): thank god I managed to have the last 100 pages to myself without distractions, as I would have throttled anyone who interrupted. I will admit here and now the author is a mate (you’ll find a link to her blog over on the right), but sod bias: this truly is the real thing, a brilliant modern thriller-with-a-brain which starts strongly and then absolutely soars. Josh Garcia’s life turns upside down when his archaeologist father mysteriously dies in Mexico, sending him in pursuit of the fabled Ix Codex, a mythical Mayan text which it is death to touch. All the classic ingredients are here: a coded letter, torn in half, containing a prophecy; a sinister organisation in pursuit; stakes that get raised from the mundane (proving his father wasn’t unfaithful to his mum) to the epic (potentially saving the world). But alongside the Bondesque car chases and exotic locations, there’s genuine heart. Josh is challenged not only by the usual gun-waving types but also by heartbreaking personal loss, and the sensitive way his emotional state is handled – without ever detracting from the pace – is what makes this such a memorable rollercoaster to ride.

It’s the first in a series, and if it isn’t hugely successful the world has gone quite, quite wonky: climb aboard now to reserve your smug expression for when it goes global. And if you can’t remember the title when you’re in the bookshop, it’s that incredible neon orange glowing book you can see from 30 feet away…

Half high-speed sledging down a hill going ‘wheee!’, half sitting in an igloo all alone. Big Woo went to print on Friday (except that it didn’t, but hopefully will today), there’s a bound proof of the US edition on its way across the Atlantic, exciting things are popping up in the trade press: all quite skippiness-inducing, if distracting. But Biscuits & Lies is limping along (mostly notes and ideas and new bits of plot still, though there are actual whole paragraphs that might one day see print now). And my igloo has a kettle.

Cloverfield (brilliant, clever, go and see it), Juno (brillianter, cleverer, go and see it even quicker-er), epic curry (homemade pakoras, korma with real coconut, eleventy-vegetable balti: was more impressive before I fed it to someone allergic to anything spicy, oops), making a Mii for the Wii that looks like Justin Lee Collins, failing to not read ONTD, squeaking with delight at the rugby, going out for coffee a lot, writing this during official ‘work’ hours, thinking a bit too much about chocolate (see above).

fumbly, mumbly, little bit stumbly

Posted on 20. Jan, 2008 by susie in books i've been reading, kids' books i've been reading, other writers, telly

In trying to nail a new character voice, I’ve realised my productive vocabulary is miniscule. But my fantasy vocabulary is thriving.

Channel 4’s Shrink Rap is a ‘dumbly and unpleasantly titled series‘, said A.A. Gill in yesterday’s Times. Which is true, but apparently open to misinterpretation: pronounce the ‘b’ in dumbly and voila! you have a whole new word for a sort of plodding doughy ordinariness, with just a hint of a twinkly-eyed wizarding headmaster to make it forgiveable.

(I’m trying to ignore the rest of the review, where Gill declares that the most morally unsettling aspect of Pamela Connolly (nee Stephenson, of Not the Nine O’Clock News/married to Billy/qualified shrink fame) interviewing Chris Langham (of Not the Nine O’Clock News/sacked from The Muppets/imprisoned for viewing images of kiddie porn notoriety) is her haircut. There were interesting things to say here about the responsibility of documentary producers, and the nature of our confessional culture: instead we get a middle-aged man feeling affronted by a middle-aged woman daring to not look dowdy. He also seems to have some difficulty with Dawn French who is, apparently (wait for it)…fat. Heavens. However is he to survive under this onslaught of imperfect, not under-25 women, poor lamb?)

Back to words: I spent much of my childhood indulging in accidental neologisms due to not wanting to look thick before my brainy family, and thus never asking what anything meant. I’m not sure it’s done me any harm, though. How much more fun is life when a terpsichore is a medieval musical instrument, or a heliotrope is a da Vinci-era prototype helicopter?

Ways to Live Forever, Sally Nicholls (YA, contemporary fiction, first novel). 11-year-old Sam is dying of leukemia, and we already know how this story ends. So far, so miserable, no? But this really is a beautiful book: wistful and filled with I-appear-to-have-something-in-my-eye moments, certainly (especially whenever Sam details, calmly and without commentary, the words of his agonised, awkward parents), but still studded with hope and wit. I met the author for a millisecond the other day (she’s a Scholastic stablemate: they’ve been raving about her forever, now I know why), and she is scarily young and clearly lovely. Only 23 when she wrote it, says the blurb: blimey. One to watch out for, I’d reckon. Also whizzed through Penelope Lively’s Ghost of Thomas Kempe. They don’t make them like that no more – or rather, they don’t publish them. Dated, but there’s a lovely subtext about history and where one fits into it.

Correcting the galley proofs for the UK edition of Big Woo, at speed as we’re on the most insane schedule. I love proofs: it’s the first time you start to really feel it’s a book, not a manuscript. They also allow you to pretend to be a proper writer: ‘Sorry, darling, will call you back when I’ve finished with the proofs for my new novel’ is one of those sentences you dream about saying, just a little bit.

Watching Babel (genuinely excellent, though it emphasises the fragility of our little lives too acutely for comfort); yoga class (I’m so rubbish at this time of year: ow); Buffy and Torchwood and Farscape and can you tell I’m supposed to have been writing this weekend?