COURAGE

If ever there was a person who deserves an award for courage and for truly understanding what is right, it's this woman - Carol Saldinack.

You can read the article right here, also see a newsclip of her discussing this.

Basically, she overheard her two sons brashly boasting about a man they'd beaten up and left for dead. Realising that if it had been one of her own sons left for dead in a pool of his own blood, she'd want to know who did it, she'd want justice brought to bear. So she called the police and handed them both in; a heartbreaking, but right decision.

I hope when the Queen and the government get round to compiling their list for this year's honours and awards, that Carol is right at the very top of that list...you know, above the TV celebrity honoured for 40 years of light entertainment, or the premier league footballer's medal for gallantry, or the retired MP's knighhood, or the BBC weather girl who's boosted her showbiz profile by campaigning against landmines.

APPRENTICE: week 7

This evening's most gob-smacking momemt of drop-dead stupidity comes from Michael 'I'm a good Jewish boy' Sophocles. How the **** did he....hang on, let me just calm myself down.

Okay, I'm better.

Ahem...I'll start again. How did he think that a chicken could be made kosher by having it blessed by a Muslim cleric? Well the answer did seem to be, he invented his Jewish heritage to look good on the CV. But honestly, you'd think if you're going to invent that kind of detail, you'd learn the most well known word of yiddish - kosher.

Oye.

Apart from that moment. I thought the rest of this week's show was pretty lame - no different than watching a bunch of over-sugared toddlers scampering around someone's lounge looking for hidden easter eggs.

I'm not sure the right people went tonight - the two Jennys. They were both, I thought, quite strong candidates. I suspect they were victims of the hidden spectre that haunts this show like a dark shadow - the unseen Producer. I'd guess neither Jenny was a ratings winner...too sensible, too grown up, too boring.

APPRENTICE: WEEK 6

From the very first minute of this week's episode Kevin 'Daffyd' Shaw's card was marked. This time round I saw who was going to get the boot a mile off.

The reason why Kevin's team lost are numerous; chiefly amongst these reasons though, was that the idea was crap. plain and simple. As soon as they gleefully embraced the 'send an eco card' idea, I turned to me other 'arf and I could see on her face the same bemused expression that was no doubt on mine....

...why the feck would someone eco-aware want to add to their carbon footprint by sending a bleedin' card with a message about not adding to one's carbon foot print?

The other reason Kevin's lot lost, was somewhat more painful to watch....Kevin's child-like performance pitching a concept he clearly wasn't particularly au fait with, and hiding behind grown up business words and phrases like 'market positioning' and 'retail foot print' and 'the'.

But the biggest question I have about this evenings show...and this is the one that has me seriously doubting the whole Apprentice set up...my question is this -

Did Tesco really place an order for 6,000 of these eco cards? Re-e-e-ally?

Hmmmm. I'm a little sceptical of that.

I for one shall be scouring Tesco's gift card shelves for these, no doubt very elusive cards, and should I actually manage to find one....I'm buying it. And I'm going to hang on to it for a while. It's going to be a collectors item...heck I might even eventually flog it on ebay.

Anyway Kevin's gone....no more Daffyd material for me then. Bugger it.

GRAND THEFT AUTO 4 - a pscho's wet dream

I intend to buy it....just as soon as the dust has settled on the stampede of zitty chavs and wannabee gangstas.

As a piece of game design it's unsurpassed. As a graphics showcase, it's jaw-dropping. It's a game I want desperately to own, because of the free-form structure of the game, and because it's also a perfect research tool for a book I'm writing set in Brooklyn.

But, I gotta say...watching the Youtube movies of various kiddies playing the game, I'm genuinely chilled by what they're doing. If you can judge by these gameplay movies what it is the feral chavvies and gangsta wannabees want to get out of the GTA4 experience, it seems to be the opportunity to blast at woman's breasts and genitals at close quarters, to shoot at passing cars through the winddshield to get that rewarding blast of a horn as the dead driver's forehead slumps forward onto the steering wheel.

Don't get me wrong, as en ex-game designer and now an author, I absolutely DO NOT WANT TO CENSOR creative mediums....but observing the movies of gameplay thus far, I'm deeply worried about the nascent pyshosis displayed by a generation of hooded sociopaths planning their next virtual bloodbath as they lie in bed, presumably whacking-off as they reminisce over the last business woman they shot a dozen times in the vagina.

If there's any opinion beginning to form in my head now, any call to action....it's not to ban any particular game, or to apply limits on what can and cannot be depicted...but for us grown-ups to take a long hard look at the mental health of the generation growing up beneath us - our kids.

I can't help thinking that the gameplay movies I've been watching this morning, were put together by lads very similar in mindset (and most probably appearence - bullet-headed and dull-eyed) as the feral creatures that beat up Robert Maltby and beat to death Sophie Lancaster.

Bugger...I think I've almost talked myself out of buying the game now.

APPRENTICE: WEEK 5

Okay...I like Lucinda, I really do, she's nice. But, I really expected her team to tear her to pieces and eat her alive this week. I thought Lucinda simply wasn't psychotic enough to lead them. So...what a pleasant surprise that someone taking the lead in such a pleasant, courteous, consultative way, managed to get a general thumbs-up from her team.

It just goes to show, that after being nominated project manager, you don't have to sit every one down and give one of those 'I'm-the-bleedin'-BOSS-geddit?!' type speeches, to get a team pulling behind you. A little bit of courtesy seems to get the job done just as well.

Lucinda...the Queen of 'Nice'......ahhhh.

On the other hand, we had Jennifer, the Ice Queen. Actually though, perhaps that's a little unfair. She's slim, attractive and cool - sadly, that means she's guaranteed to be portrayed as a bitch. There's no escaping it.

Poor lass. But hell...you just know it makes for the perfect tabloid headline, doesn't it? Something along the lines of....

'Apprentice: Nice Queen Vs Ice Queen'

APPRENTICE: Week4

The wrong pair of nuts got lopped off this week in my humble opinion. I genuinely thought Sergeant Simon Smith was a contender for the last three, but alas....it seems that from the very first moment, his tenure as Commander-in-Chief was in danger from a combined Claire and Alex (or Kerry Katona and James Blunt) pincer movement.

Yup. The pair of them had it in for him from the get-go.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say...I suspect they actually sabotaged his project, or at the very least, dragged their heels as much as possible. I think they knew, that if their team failed, the entire team would be united in condemning Sergeant Smith's parade ground management style.

I'd hate to manage someone like Claire, really hate that....I think it would make every working day, a nightmare. Someone like her would grind me down very quickly. Someone like her would give me a nervous breakdown...at the very least, a severe facial tic.

So it was with some pleasure, that I enjoyed the non-plussed look on her mug when slimey young Alex stuck the blade in from behind at the last possible moment.

Made me chuckle, that.

Still...it wasn't enough. She got through. (Obviously a Production call - we all know a bitch like that makes for great TV....so she's safe for a while.)

Aww nuts. I like Simon.

APPRENTICE: WEEK3

Well, I think I've nailed the apprentice I consider to be the biggest twat....it's good old Kevin Shaw.

A long time ago, I used to work in telesales, and the cubicles were full of guys like Kevin, who talked a good game, bigged themselves up, said they could do anything they put their mind to, and then left after couple of weeks, with cheeks blotchy-red from embarressment and egg running down their chin after failing to hit the basic sales target.

Hell, I failed too...but the difference was, I never trumpeted myself as a Gordon Gekko or a Jerry McGuire.

Basically then, Kevin seems to be something of a less-than-honest little weasel (as they all do I suppose at one point or another)....

Before: 'I know Italian food, guys. Yeah, certainly....I'm ideal being head chef. Oh yeah.'
After: 'Umm...No Sir Alan, I catagorically didn't want to be head chef. No Sir. No sirrreee. Nope.'

As for Simon, hmmm...I quite like the chap. I can why Alan quite likes him too. I suspect he considers Lance Corporal Simon Smith might be cut from similar cloth; a rough diamond with a bit of savvy. We'll see.

Prediction for a finalist? Well, it's still pretty early to make a call, but if I was going to shove some money on a couple of candidates they would be Lee McQueen (tall fella, dark hair...a poor man's Clive Owen) and Claire Young (Kerry Katona's marginally more attractive sibling)

APPRENTICE: week 1

Comparatively photogenic bunch this time around, arne't they? No real mingers so it seems. I'm sure, of course, being relatively easy on the eye had nothing to do with the vetting process for the twenty thousand I-will-kill-to-get-my-own-way Apprentice auditionees.

They certainly managed to select a somewhat sociopathic bunsh of wannabess, this year. I'm not sure which guy says 'I will cut from my life anyone who stops me getting what I want' in the opening title sequence, but I really don't wouldn't want to get a sneak glimpse of his dark fantasies. I wouldn't be entirely surprised if he's got a Jamie Gumb styled basement someplace where he's quietly fashioning a woman-suit from tattered strips of human skin.

Anyway.....

...a promising opening with bitchiness on the go from the very start. Fun watching Alex, the first project manager for the fellas, working on his blame gameplan after only the first couple of hours. Okay...maybe £5 for a lobster does sound a bit on the cheap side, but full credit for barrister Nick, being the one to go and figure out they were taking a beating on that front, and then report back promptly.

This week...I think he was the wrong guy to go. Peronsallu, I'd have picked Raef, who's already getting on my nerves with his pompous Brian Sewell, mouth-full-of-plums accent.

WHAT DOES THE END OF THE WORLD LOOK LIKE?

...well, I guess it starts out looking like this.

If you can't be arsed to read the article in the Independent, the gist is this....even though the world is turning out bumper crops of grain, mass starvation is on the horizon principally because a growing Chinese and Indian middle class have enough money to consume meat, which is rapidly hoovering grain harvests (it takes 8lbs of wheat to 'make' 1lb of meat). That and the demand for bioethanol, mean food staples will become increasingly scarce and increasingly expensive.

I read an essay by an economist a while back that stated that, according to his calculations, a population of 2 billion could be sustained indefinately on this planet, at a living standard comparable to that enjoyed in the west. We're now approaching 7 billion...and every one of them wants that lavish western lifestyle.

It doesn't take a genious to realise, we're on a path to someplace very ugly. Putting Peak Oil aside for one moment, we face a whole load of other 'Peaks'...Peak Uranium, Peak Food....Peak Water for crissakes. The bottom line is we're exhausting every resource, and we're doing it horrendously quickly.

What can we look forward to? A war between the 1st and the 3rd world? A war between China, Russia, Europe and America over dwindling supplies of available food? Food rationing...food rioting?....that's just a look at the availability of one type of food stuff. It gets worse when we fold in issues such as energy security, political, racial and religious differences.

Bottom line...too many people for one planet. But we knew that. It's just one of those things that one doesn't say in polite company, because it elicits further awkward questions such as....if there's too many people around, how are we going to lessen the number? Which bunch of people most deserve to be removed? Which bunch most deserve to stay?

Awkward....very awkward.

THE G SPOT CONSPIRACY

Okay, I'll be first to admit I'm a little naive when it comes to the nitty gritty of making whoopsie, with...you know....a lady. I'm married by the way, so let's not make any premeptive assumptions here about my sexuality - I'm as red-blooded and able to talk cars/sport/Hifis as the next man.

Anyway, I've always considered the 'G spot' to be something of a myth. It's not, as some fellas will think, the clitoris - that little nub of flesh most attentive blokes will rub with all the sensitivity of a blacksmith grinding down metal. It's actually never been medically identified. It's the sort of X-factor of the vagina, you've either got it...or you ain't.

Something of a thorny issue I suppose. If you're one of the 40% who do, life holds so much promise. Whilst the other 60% are doomed to a life of smiling politely at their partners...as they dutifully grind away.

An interesting report on BBC's site today, showed that some Italian scientists have identified a slightly thicker bit of the front wall of the vagina appears to house the G spot. Reading the article I'm not entirely convinced though....it all sounds a bit ambiguous. What I would be more convinced by would be something that looked like a button - preferably large, with 'push me' stencilled on the front.

Yup...I'm a typical fella in that I need 'absolutes' not wishywashy answers. I don't want to hear that it's some nebulous 'region' of flesh that's slightly thicker in some woman than others, I want a damned component, dammit....something I can see, and aim for.

So until somebody in a white lab coat can photograph some explicit thingy and explain how it works with a nice big diagram, I'll continue to be something of a sceptic, and suggest that the G spot, has more to do with a woman's state of mind...or....perish the thought, the dexterity and skill of her ape-fisted fella.

ROWAN WILLIAMS and SHARIA LAW

Well, what a buzz of response to this story. I listened to the radio interview yesterday morning on Radio 4, and I was thinking then, as he spoke, that the phone lines very soon were going to be melting.

What has quickly happened with the story though, as always seems to happen, is that the media have very deliberately turned what was said it something that wasn't. They've taken his comments out of context in order to get headlines that will have all of us decent folk coughing and spluttering into morning coffees. I've yet to see the tabloid headlines this morning...but I can pretty well imagine what they might be.

So...what was Williams advocating? Well...he's a very 'woolly' speaker that's for sure, using ambiguous, carefully chosen phrases, and it does take a little work to unravel what his intended message is. However....I believe what his message was, was this:

'Why don't we allow the muslim community to arbitrate their own disagreements amongst themselves...using the acceptable elements of shariah law as a framework?'

Now looking at this, in the cold light of a new morning....I really don't think I have a problem with it. And here's why:

a. it already happens in muslim communities
b. it's no different to the Beth Din court system used by the Jewish community
c. it doesn't usurp, contradict or replace British civil and criminal law

What Rowan Williams rather inexpertly did, was announce what is already going on in a clumsy way that's got us all worked up over absolutely nothing. I suppose, the silver lining in this sorry little episode that no doubt will sell a lot more papers, is that I have been reassured by the almost universal condemnation of any kind of religious inroads being made into the legal system of this country.

And that's something, to be honest, to feel very comfortable about.

DODGY AMAZON REVIEWS

Since being published, I find myself checking in with my books on Amazon from time to time, and becoming quite familiar with the various abuses of the system that are going on.

For starters, you can spot the author-under-pseudonym reviews a mile off. Usually they award themselves 5 stars. The review is usually only a couple of paragraphs, presumably because they fear waxing on at too great a length, they might give themselves away. But the real give-away is when you go and check the reviewer's other reviews and find, surprise, surprise, there are none. It's as if said reviewer had winked into existence just to post the one (glowing) review, and then vanished into obscurity.

Poor thing.

I think of these as 'phantom reviewers'...and they usually puff into existence, as if by magic, after a particularly negative review has been posted. And they don't come in ones. Oh no....the phantoms miraculously appear in two and threes, post their gushing 5 star opinions, and then disappeared amidst a cloud of wishful thinking.

So hmmm...it does seem a lot of authors are out there playing a bit of a dodgy game. I do think it's damaging the value and integrity of Amazon's review system that there is so much of this going on. As well as an author I'm a big reader and trawling for something new to read, I rely very much on what other readers have said about a book.

So bad is the proliferation of author-authored reviews, that the only reviews I'm beginning to trust are the negative ones! Even then...I suspect some of the really bad 1 star reviews are either posted by rival authors in an attempt to spoil each other's potential sales, or acquaintences from an author's distant past - perhaps some old school bully who's stumbled via Friends Reunited or Facebook onto the fact their one time victim actually managed to achieve something...or an ex-partner looking to stick an anonymous boot in.

I'd like Amazon to tighten up this system somehow. I mean, it's so open to abuse, that bigger name authors now have Web Pr companies busily heaping praise on their books no doubt hiring an army of monkeys to cut and paste generic glowing-praise reviews for their clients.

*sigh*

I'm Back!

Woah...it's been 3 months since I last posted. That's really lame. I should perhaps explain myself - work really. The last novel, AZRAELS WHISPER proved a real bugger to finish. Hardest thing I've written. Anyway, the good news is, having handed in a 1st draft to my editor some weeks ago, he came back yesterday loving the book. Yes, of course, there are some issues to tweak and retune, but most importantly it's not the disaster I thought it was.

Now, I've got to try and work out why I thought it was a disaster. That's the tricky bit. Well, I've done some thinking on it, and I suspect I was measuring the book against my previous one, LAST LIGHT, which was a work of passion. Nothing I write will compare to that I think, at a personal level...because I realise now how much of myself I put into it.

Anyway, point is AZRAEL is a wholly different book, and yes...I'm confident now that it's a good 'un. It'll be even better when I get in their and tune the engine after christmas. The only real bummer about the book - one that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later, is the title. My editor didn't like it, said it sounded to 'high fantasy'. And he's probably right there.

So, I need to get my cap on and start thinking about something else.

X FACTOR: Campaign to De-rail the show

They did this in the States recently. Some enterprising young bloggers in the USA set up a campaign where they implored potential phone-in voters to deliberately vote for the worst performers of the night. After a few weeks the show became embarressingly unsustainable as the remaining acts got progressively painful to watch, and the programme was being shown up as the complete sham that it is.

Here's a link to an article about it.

I'd really love to see the same kind of campaign to derail the show, start up over here in the UK.

C'mon we know it isn't about musical talent. It certainly isn't about seeking original talent. Actually, it's about finding a squeeky-clean, saturday-night singing/dancing act that fits the bland 'Light entertainment' cookie-cutter.

Having watched this evening's boot camp show, I've finally had enough of seeing the more interesting, unique acts being filtered out in favour of the bland, plastic-looking, nasal-sounding R&B clones.

Sorry...I've reached the gag-response stage. I just can't take it any more.

What's more, I want to be part of some movement to show this country's lazy TV content makers that enough's enough. Television viewers in this country are just as bright and discerning as the TV viewers in the States, and we know the piss is being taken out of us by them. So, you know....sorry, but **** off. I can't stomach it any more.

I'm sure there are others out there who feel the same way. I'm sure there are other bloggers out there who've posted a similar call to arms. Hell...let's unite. If you're up for it, pass a link to this blog to anyone you know. Let's really screw over X Factor and the production company behind it (who, by the way, earn millions per show off the phone-in dividend). Because you see....if 6 weeks in, they're left with the worst six acts, they'll start losing viewers as people realise it's no longer a proper contest. With viewer ratings sliding, so will advertising revenue, and that's when the ITV content buyers will have to start to question whether the X Factor talent show formula has finally run out of steam.

Okay...roundabout this point, you're wondering about the ethics of this, right? The good acts I'm asking people to vote off, instead of the crap acts...? Well, look, the good acts, the guys/girls that really can sing and dance - know this....they're already signed up by talent agencies, and believe me, their careers stand a much better chance of longevity by going out early. Seriously. They will thank the day that they didn't burn out on too much Saturday night exposure early on. Trust me.

So, you up for it? Will you pass this blog on to someone else? Do you want to see Simon Cowell shake his head with bemusement and squirm with embaressment at the live show as it gradually gets worse and worse?

Come on...let's do it.

WIP UPDATE

Well, I passed the 100k mark on Monday, and I'm hoping to wrap this novel up on friday at roughly 110-115k words.

It's been a hard book to write, this my 4th novel, and I really can't fathom why that is. My best guess is that this one came after Last Light, which was a work of passion. This 4th novel I've always viewed as a very commercial book, very much in the same mould as A Thousand Suns, a commercial book, but not a work of passion.

I'm now approaching the climax...and climaxes are usually fun to write, from quite an early stage I tend to know how I want to end it...so this should all be straight forward. That said, there's a lot of story threads to tie up.

When I'm done, I'm taking a week off. Then I'll be back to edit it throughout October, then come November, I shall probably start work on a film script, whilst I farm this manuscript out to a handful of trusted beta readers.

XFACTOR : the abusive girl

I think her name was Rachel, wasn't it?

Whilst I have to agree with the judges that she didn't seem to have that great a singing voice, it certainly wasn't that bad, and better than one or two they've let through in the past.

However, what worked against her was of course the attitude. The judges clearly want pliable little starlets who will play the game, speak when spoken to, be all gushy and teary and endearingly grateful for the opportunity handed down to them from on high. Not someone who's going to give 'em a mouthful.

Rachel in actual fact, demonstrated the near sociopathic levels of self-belief and tenacity that most young musicians looking to break into showbiz actually need to get them there. It's that kind of ruthless arrogance that underpins - I suspect - most of the successful people we see on our TV sets. Let's be honest, it's that kind of self-serving nastiness that got Sharon Osbourne and Simon Cowell up the slippery pole of the music business. (not so sure about Loius...I think he's too much of a nice guy to have fought his way up).

What I suspect the judges didn't like was that Rachel was a mirror on their past lives, back when they were nobodies and had to be complete shites to get on, effortlessly stabbing rivals and competitors in the back to make their way up.

I personally would have said yes to Rachel, because I think she had enough of a voice to work on, the grim-faced tenacity to practice and practice and really transform herself...plus, she would have made for fantastic telly.

You can imagine it can't you? On the final 12 shows where the punters vote for 'em....the stream of beep-heavy invective at the general public for not appreciating her talent when it came her turn to be booted off.

Boy, they missed a trick there.

Ah yes...X factor, every year I get sucked in, every year I nearly choke on the rancid stink of hypocracy coming from the judges and the show's producers.

GENDER REASSIGNMENT...

...I'm opting for it.

I'm fed up being a bloke, I really am. From now on I want to be known as Alice Scarrow. Don't get me wrong, I'm not confused about my sexuality. I definately do not find men attractive. And that's the point....

...I'm completely fed up with men.

I'm fed up with the inate aggression that bubbles just beneath the surface of many specimens of my gender. Listening to the radio this evening, I was appalled at the mindless, motiveless shooting of that poor boy, Rhy Jones, in Croxteth. I was sickened by a shooting in Hertford sparked off by one car, fender-bending another. I'm sickened by the appalling abuse of women and children going on in Sudan, Sierra Leone, Somalia, and in the recent past in Bosnia. I'm sickened by the mysogenist (sp?) attitude be...ahem....certain faiths I dare not mention for fear of prosecution (under recent ill-concieved statutes) or worse....a revenge attack by some zealot.

Men.

It seems every act of mindless violence, every cruel act of torture, every bit of abuse, nastiness, every little bit of shitty attitude...comes from some testosterone-loaded member of my gender.

Of course there are exceptions. The few blokes I consider friends, seem to be very much the exception to the rule...gentle, considerate souls. But every pub, or bar I pass at night, seems to be full of red-faced, brutish bulldogs ready to mash a broken bottle into your face at the mention of the right trigger word.

And hey...I'm not directing my venom exclusively at British males. God no. In fact, I consider members of the male gender in this country to be comparatively less aggressive than quite a few other places in the world. No...there's no racial or nationalistic slant I want to put on this. I've just generally had enough with the male of our species.

So I think I'll opt out.

I'm not after having my manhood removed, and I'm quite happy with my goatee, and I really don't want to learn to talk with a higher pitched cadence....I just don't feel like being associated with the barbaric, cruel, simple-minded, aggressive, shaved apes that share this planet with the other, generally more pensive and placid half of the homosapien species.

Until I can be convinced that otherwise...I think I'd prefer to be considered not male. Hmmm, but maybe not Alice Scarrow...that's going a bit too far.

I think for now, I'd like to be considered an IT instead of a HE.

MY JFK MOMENT

The weirdest thing happened to me in London on Friday. I was in central London, at a cafe/resaurant off Oxford street, sitting outside in the warm evening, under an awning enjoying dinner with my son, wife and niece.

We'd just coompleted our main course - pizzas and bread, and were moving on to ordering pudding. The waitress arrives at our table with a jug of water and four tumblers, places them down on the table, clears our plates away, takes our orders for pudding.

A few moments later pudding arrives, we just start tucking into them when....

....one of the tumblers exploded, shooting shards of glass across our table, one or two on neighboring tables, shards out on to the pavement. It exploded. It didn't crack as perhaps it might if the glass had just come out of a very hot dishwasher and then be chilled by an ice cube.

It exploded.

Ten seconds of astonished silence followed. Then for some reason, my mind concluded it could only be one thing. A sniper. Obviously now, I feel like a complete tit, but at that moment in time, processing the available data...in my mind, that's the only thing it could have been.

'Sniper!' I blurted. And dragged my family inside the restuarant. The momentary panic spread to a few other customers, who had seen the glass explode, or recieved glass fragments on their table.

And so we cowered inside the restaurant, looking on as pedestrians on the street carried on as normal, cars and mopeds passed....and nothing further happened.

Fifteen minutes later, we all realised there probably wasn't a mad sniper firing from some building nearby, and that perhaps I might have over-reacted. The waiters went outside to sweep up the glass, shaking their heads with bemusement....and I shuffled umcomfortably under the withering gaze of the other restaurant guests.

A somewhat embarressing moment.

Anyway, they knocked the price of desert off our bill, so that was nice.

Still, I really can't explain why that flipping glass tumbler exploded like it did. And at the back of my mind I'm still thinking it was a sniper...not neccessarily some high powered hunting rifle, but maybe a kid with an air rifle? There's really no other explanation I can think of.

SCARROW vs JK ROWLING

Isn't it typical?

My big break-out novel LAST LIGHT... a thriller touching on a HUGE issue that affects everyone - an issue that literally is right round the corner from us...came out in the same bleedin' fortnight as Harry Potter. Not just any Potter book of course, but the last one, the one everyone will want to buy.

You go into any book shop now, and you'll find atleast 25% of the table space that would otherwise have been devoted to new books coming out, filled with Potter books. And of course, my book, the one that I had hoped would be the Big Issue novel of the summer, the one that would stimulate debate in every living room across the country, will quietly vanish to the anonymity of A-Z in bookstores around the country.

*sigh*

Sadly in this business you only really get one bite at the cherry; a window of about 12-16 weeks where the book gets a chance to sit up front in the store on one of those center tables and hopefully grab the attention of browsing customers with a wonderfully eye-catching cover.

Well, that window was lost to Harry Potter. Marvelous.

I never stood a chance.

Well, I'm not a quitter. LAST LIGHT will come out in paperback next year. I'm hoping it won't coincide with the paperback release of HP7...I really am. But, sheeesh, let's think positive. It won't coincide. And LAST LIGHT will have a chance - on those center tables - to attract the attention of tens of thousands of customers casually grazing for a summer read.

And then of course, whilst I may not have a marketing campaign, there's always word of mouth. I stumbled upon this page of reviews for LL the other day. None of these people are my mum. None of them my best mate. None of them are me reviewing under a pseudonym. These reviews have come from total strangers who picked the book up because something in the cover attracted their gaze.

Here....take a look for yourself: Waterstones Page

There's hope yet. Word-of-mouth....it really is the lifeblood of unknown authors. Without people prepared to take the time and stick a few words of review up on the net, newbie authors like me would be wholly screwed.

HEROES - First impressions

Hmmm....the jury is out, as far as I'm concerned. I'll whittle this down into a list of Good and Bad.

The Good:

There were moments which were mesmeric and pleasant. For example the hallucinatory cut aways of the guy who thinks he can fly. Mainly it's the music and the musing voice-over...it's nice.

I liked Hiro, the Japanese guy who can teleport. I believe in that character, I believe there are plenty of nerds like him around the world, who look like him, sound like him and believe the same zany stuff as him.

I liked some of the no-holes-barred FX...the pokey-outy rib cage on the cheerleader, the sawn of skulls. Pretty grisly, but encouraging that this'll be a post 9pm watershed viewing experience.


The Bad:

Oh where do I start?...I know, the catwalk cast.

Why, oh why, oh why...do US tv shows feel the need to populate their shows with tall, athletic, impossibly glamorous characters with really cool hair, and marvelous bone structure? Every time I see a character like that I feel the urge to turn over and watch something else. Impossibly glamorous people like this don't live in the real world, they live in CelebrityLand...to me, they are not real people, therefore I simply do not care for them.

I mean take a look at the image above; the glamourous webcam hooker-mom, the glamorous brilliant Indian scientist, the glamorous flying doctor, the glamorous high school cheerleader....the glamorous artist guy, his glamorous girlfriend....I really couldn't give a toss about any of them.

On the other hand, the Japanese guy, and the tubby cop...now, I felt they looked more like real people, therefore I was instantly ready to empathise with them and their storylines. It's really not rocket science. Cast real people and you'll get the audience onboard much quicker.

There was some painfully in-yer-face expository dialog in the first few scenes. That's annoying perhaps to other writers who recognise when a conversation is taking place between two characters simply to get the viewing audience up to speed on the story. You know what I mean, the kind of dialog that goes:

Character A: 'But Bob, you know your father always hated you?'

Character B: 'Ah yes, he did, ever since I first discovered he was working on discovering XYZ. He had no time for a little kid like me.'

Character A: 'And that always affected you Bob, didn't it? That your father hated you? So you went to University to prove yourself to him?'

etc etc.

That kind of dialog usually comes in thick and fast near the beginning of a show/film as the writer desperately races to educate the viewer so he'd ready for the plot to begin. But, you know, a good writer does it subtly, a bad writer doesn't.

In Summary:

I'm going to stick with it for now. It is an interesting premise, and I like that most of the budget will end up on the screen and not in the back pockets of a recogniseable celebrity cast.

But...my biggest moan is the insecurity American Tv/film producers have, insisting on catwalk casts. Really, it's okay, the viewing audience can handle non-gorgeous characters. So pssssst...here's a quiet tip for you casting pro's guys:-

...ordinary tv-viewing people like us, actually prefer normal looking people, okay?