Radio 4 comedy: no laughing matter

The much-anticipated post-Huphrey Lyttleton series of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue has now started, under the genial chairmanship of His Twittership Stephen Fry. I didn't think it worked very well. Even under Humphrey, the programme had become stretched and formulaic, giving increasing time over to rounds to allow bad singers to sing badly, at the expense of lively wit. But Fry didn't work very well, mainly because he followed so closely the phrasing and persona established by Humphrey. The same occurred when Angus Deayton was replaced on Have I Got News For You? : not only did his successors sound like ill-at-ease imitators, by demonstrating how much was scripted, it cast a retrospective pall over Deayton's talent by revealing its origins. It seemed to be a lack of confidence by the Clue producers: Samantha and Sven have been a running joke for 10 years or more - isn't it time to start a new one? And when Fry introduced Sound Charades with a reference to Give Us a Clue, last broadcsat in 1992, didn't someone pause to calculate how many people will never have seen it? It is a shame that the opportunity to introduce some new rounds or jokes was missed.

But it is still the best comedy on Radio 4, compared to the anaemic Hut 33, the bizarre and laughter-free WW2 Bletchley Park drama, in which the cast do what they can with funny accents and overacting to compensate for the lack of jokes, or Elvenquest, the Lord of the Rings parody. Successful parodies of fantasies have to be based on a credible sincerity about the world they inhabit: Elvenquest instead was a rag-bag of incongruous banter. This wouldn't matter so much if the elements had been original, but they included an evil master suffering disillusionment at his role and an incompetent sidekick (as in Old Harry's Game), a dog's view on human behaviour (as in About a Dog), and the central relationship between a dithering 'hero' and a strong and dismissive heroine (as in Hitchkiker's Guide to the Galaxy). This last comparison is fatal - at one point I thought to myslef 'that's nearly up to H2G2 standards' - in other words, the comdey had almost got as far as a programme made 30 years ago.

There appears to be a strangehlold of large-cast underwritten mediocrity at the moment, in which series like Claire in the Community and Old Harry's Game stand out like beacons of competence.

Nadine Dorries MP and her expenses: not good enough, would-be minister

The great expenses saga has generated more heat than light, and enough hot air to threaten our climate change targets. A lot of people are outraged that MPs have two houses and buy expensive things, even though nobody would become an MP for the money (working barristers who become MPs suffer a dramatic drop in salary). It seems these days that we no longer hate the rich because they're rich: we are supposed to admire people like Richard Branson or Bill Gates. But we still feel an unease that other people may be getting an easy ride, while we don't. There is something appealingly anachronistic about someone claiming for cleaning out their moat or managing their mole problems, but the truth is that these would be counted as legitimiate business expenses by an estate, farm, or self-employed person.

However, MPs have been taken by surprise at the virulence of the hatred they have unleashed, because they misunderstand its underlying cause: what people care more about money is equitable treatment. Fairness is such a core principle in our psyche that we would prefer that nobody was given a prize rather than it should go to the wrong person. It's interesting in this context to consider the case of Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP, who is one of the few MPs so far to come out robustly defending her actions. Commenters have queried how many houses she has (and therefore the basis of her claim for an 'additional' house in her constinuency), and she responded with further clarification which sounds complicated but seems reasonable.

But in her response to the Daily Telegraph questions, she concedes the really damaging point. Their first question is:

1. In 2006 you claimed for the cost of a hotel stay on New Year's Eve and another just a few days before Christmas, when the House was not sitting. Please can you explain why you felt this was an appropriate use of public funds.

She responds:

I have never spent a New Years Eve away from my daughters and I have never spent it in a hotel, ever. In fact, New Years Eve 2006 is when I held a party and cooked a 12 bird roast and I blogged the entire evening. Anyone reading this can check it out.

The Telegraph has an invoice charged to MR N Dorries, which was submitted, but never paid. I don’t actually submit the invoices, my PA does, and that one may have been submitted in error, In error - because I never stayed at any hotel on New Years Eve ever if it had ever been paid it would have been refunded IMMEDIATLEY. What may have happened is that someone who is not a member of the Carlton Club may have booked a room in my name, friends do, however; my other point is that I am not even sure the Carlton Club is open over Xmas and New Year?

The fact is though that an invoice was submitted from my office, for a room I didn’t stay in, which is obviously an error and no money was paid to me for that invoice.

She implies it should have been obvious to anyone with any familiarity with her movements and lifestyle that the invoice submitted as a claim was not an expense she had any involvement with.

Which is true.

But what she has admitted is that the invoice which would have been totally out of character for her to have incurred, was submitted to the Fees Office by her PA, who would presumably have known what Dorries did that New Year's Eve. The fact that the claim was never paid does not alter the farudulent nature of that claim submitted on her behalf by her staff.

"Members must ensure that claims do not give rise to, or give the appearance of giving rise to, an improper personal financial benefit to themselves or anyone else."
(Green Book)

However steadfast she is in addressing the other concerns, she has conceded that:

• her office is so chaotic she cannot keep irrelevant paperwork separated from her offical records
• her staff prepare and submit claims on her behalf without her checking them (since she would have spotted at a glance that the invoice couldn't be right)
• the claim made would, if paid, have been in breach of the Green Book rules since she would have been paid for an invoice which was not a legitiamte expense

On a personal level, and perhaps as an MP, maybe this IS a minor matter. But Dorries is touted as ministerial material for the next Conservative government, and one would hesitate to give her oversight of a department when she is transparently unable to run an efficient and honest staff.

Work in progress

There is an interesting distinction between prose and poetry writers and their attitudes to ideas. Poets without inspiration can do nothing, but can pursue any idle thought without investing too much time; they therefore tend to be passive and, if uninspired, concerned. Prose writers will usually have more ideas than they have time to deal with, and therefore treat the writing process as more of a routine chore. This doesn't, however, make them any happier about talking about a work in progress.

For a start, there is the superstitious fear that saying out loud that it's going well will be the cue for it to stop. Then there is the more rational advice that if you tell somebody about how the story ends, you will lose all interest in typing it, since you have reached the conclusion. But the biggest stumbling block is trying to capture the nuances of the tale which reaches beyond bald plot summaries. I remember seeing a discussion about the value of writer's endorsements on the c0ver : 'I wished I'd written it!' - Dan Brown. The conclusion was that publishers are very keen on them but buyers aren't: they ignore them. What they want, and are often denied, is an idea of what the book is about.

I'm not sure, though, that this really helps. When I say on the back of File Under Fiction that it has a story about a gentry family living on a country estate, I presumably may arouse the interest of fans of Evelyn Waugh, Jilly Cooper, or Joanna Trollope, but most of them would be disappointed. The danger is that in the abstract most stories sound dull - imagine a novel about this big shark, that eats some swimmers, and then is caught; or, a whaling captain tries to catch a whale; or an old man tries to catch a big fish. None of them sound like winners, really. You really do need some sort of meta characterisation about pure plot, to give readers hints about the sort of book it is.

These days most of this information about style is provided typographically: chick lit books are instantly defined by the zany font and colour scheme, just as thrillers will have short titles in bold letters. Although this can be convenient, it does tend to ghetto-ize people's reading habits, so that they only read the sort of books they have read.

The reason I'm thinking about this is that the book is finished, and at 180 pages is something you could point at as something substantial, something that could be marketed. But who to? But another reason is that I feel I've reached a natural end-point; I have been working on and off on the long stories for five years or more, and now they're done I'm wondering what's next. I've got some ideas, but they would sound even stranger than the ones I've completed. But one thing I have noticed recently is that I really can sit down and write: the Dylan story was complete in outline in my head by the time I was back home from the gig, and complete on paper the next day. So whatever it is, it should go smoother.

A night like this (January 7th 1974): short story

Phil awoke, cold and stiff. He was alone, still clothed. He must have dropped off where he sat. The scent of tobacco and dope smoke engrained in his crumpled clothes competed with the unfamiliar apartment's own odour of damp and decay.

From the stereo speakers in the corner came the repeating click and hiss as the needle followed the circling groove around the label; on the floor lay the shiny album sleeve, disfigured with stamped warnings: the review copy of Planet Waves which he'd picked up yesterday at the gig. It wouldn't be in stores for a few days. Outside, dogs barked in the street.

He patted his pockets for cigarettes, found none, and coughed instead. He looked around the room, taking in the glasses, ashtrays, and bottles. And books. His memory nagged at him; there was something important he'd found out last night.


He'd first noticed the chick in the crowd at the Maple Leaf Gardens arena, while standing in the darkness of the auditorium waiting for Bob Dylan and The Band to come on stage. She stood with her eyes closed, arms part raised, ringed fingers extended, rocking and swaying gently to some silent rhythm. As the concert started, she opened her eyes and stared at Bob intently, following his every move. As the crowd shifted over the next half hour, she ended up alongside Phil as he lit up a joint; in response to her questioning look he passed it to her.

Then, as Bob ended 'Just like a woman' with a magically inventive and expressive harmonica solo, their eyes locked and they nodded in recognition of the artistry they had witnessed. Putting his arm around her shoulders seems a natural response, and by the time the lights went out on the encore of 'Most likely you'll go your way and I'll go mine', they were kissing passionately. Things were looking good, he thought.

They stepped into the cold hard air of the night. Toronto was quiet to his ringing ears.

'Where do you live?' he asked.

'Not far, McGill Street,' she replied, 'although it's nothing much.'

They settled on her place; his was nothing much either. Being a music reviewer for a small alternative magazine wasn't a job for people interested in material success.

They crossed the street to the empty sidewalk and went down an alleyway between two tattered billboards, emerging in a back street. As they mounted the spidery lattice of the fire escape, she turned towards him.

'He's great, isn't he? Bob? So complex.'

I revealed the treasure in my bag.

'I know,' she said, 'I saw you get it at the gig: I can't wait to hear it!'

She squealed and ran up the steps.


They settled down on the sofa as the music started. She sat up with a start as 'Tough mama' began, shaking off his hand.

'Wait,' she said, 'I'm listening.' He listened too; it counted as work, after all. When the track finished, she stood up and repositioned the needle to start it again. She picked up a battered notebook, opened it to a fresh page, and wrote down notes as she picked out the key phrases. When the song ended, she let the album play on, but only because she was reaching up to a book shelf.

'New morning was about the Abrahamic God as Father,' she said over her shoulder, 'I think this is changing to the female principle - don't you see? Goddess - angel - beauty - mama.'

Phil nodded dejectedly. She took down a Bible, its pages interleaved with Tarot cards used as bookmarks.

'Cities of the plain,' she muttered.

Phil felt he should make some contribution, what with being an English major and professional critic and all.

'There's a Eugene O'Neill play about drug addiction - Long day's journey into night - I'm sure he's alluding to it with 'night's long journey',' he said.

'Of course,' she replied dismissively, 'or it's re-birth: that would fit better, wouldn't it?'

And so the night had gone - research, theory, listening, reading. He was eventually overcome by exhaustion and boredom.


He yawned, stretched, and stood up. He went to knock on the bedroom door, but it swung open to his pressure. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, still dressed; it was concealed benath a mat of paper, books lying open, and closely-written index cards.

'Oh, hi,' she said distractedly. 'You fell asleep. I feel like I'm getting somewhere.' She gestured at her notes. 'The number nineteen is the key, you see.'

The walls were covered with posters of Dylan, newspaper cuttings, occult symbols, and handwritten transcriptions of lyrics.

Now Phil remembered what it was. She was crazy. Not crazy like a crazy mama, or crazy like a fox. Call-the-nut-wagon, straitjacket, padded cell crazy. What were the chances of him picking up someone like that?

As he retrieved the album and crept out of the building, he realised that the chances were quite high, all things considered.

Author's note

A night like this was devised after seeing Dylan live for the first time recently. I had looked around the audience and noted the preponderance of male fans; most of the female fans had come as part of couple. 'What were the ones who came alone like?' I wondered, and realised that I knew, or could guess. The story's setting is as true as research can make it, although normally I wouldn't count that as a particularly important question: credibility is more vital than accuracy. Dylanologists will enjoy spotting references to songs in the text.

This story is included in the new edition of File under fiction.

Overheard

marketeer #1 "How did the pitch for the animal hospice account go?"
marketeer #2 "Badly- they didn't like our strapline."
marketeer#1 "What was it?"
marketeer #2 "Die like the dog you are."

Q: What is the definition of surrealism?

A: A fish.

Dreams are notoriously poorly drafted narratives, which is hardly surprising since they can abandon internal logic at any point. But I've had some strange ideas recently which may merit re-use at some time:

the Architectural Cheese Society what? well, yes, exactly

the Welsh Handshake Association dedicated to the study and practice of traditional and new techniques of hand-shaking

and strangest of all, the Sleeping Saints, a sect whose members say goodbye to their families and then lie face down on their bed, arms outstretched, until they die of starvation. Odd.

Atheist buses

After all the row over the 'There's probably no God' adverts, there's a sign generator at
http://ruletheweb.co.uk/b3ta/bus/

Brinsley Schwarz is beautiful

There isn't much rational about which bands or artists people latch onto as their favourites. Whenever I try to triangulate my tastes the results don't work: how can I like Pink Floyd, Deep Purple and Wishbone Ash but not Genesis, Led Zep and U2? I don't think that it is coincidental that my attachment to these bands was formed in the late 70s when I was a teenager. It's odd, now, looking back: when people talk about 1977, or 1976, as the year of punk, I remember it as the year that I bought Pink Floyd's 60s albums. Almost all of my listening was an exercise in rediscovery. Unlike the purist muso, who loves nothing better than knowing of some obscure work of which nobody else has heard, I have always felt isolated: surely I can't be the only one who likes Patrik Fitzgerald?

Brinsley Schwarz: Brinsley Schwarz (1970)


My interest in Brinsley Schwarz was first inspired by recognising that the guitarist in The Rumour used to have a band; when I found that it also contained Ian Gomm and Nick Lowe, both of whom I had heard and liked, it seemed likely that I would also like it. I did, I suppose, although it was a bit of a shock: 50s and 60s retro, country rock, reggae, all in a strange mix with sharp lyrics.

Listening now, what you notice is the super-abundance of talent: a Hammond organ riff is overlain by sparkling melodic guitar, punctuated by a bubbling bass line, creating a joyous noise packed full of grace notes. The group stands head and shoulders above their contemporaries.

You can see, though, why they never broke through. Quite apart from the early hostility of the music press, who felt they'd been hyped, the records they made weren't really pop, any more than Nick Lowe's work is now. Good, yes, pop, no. And there is a thinness to the writing: every album has a couple of fillers, and the reliance as a fall-back on good-time rock and roll cliches can get wearing. I guess I'm trying to justify my opinion that, as all muso purists say, the early stuff is the best:

"Warm summer morning with nothing to do
Over my shoulder there's a beautiful blue
Guess I'll walk the four miles to Ebury Down
Go to see my lady when there's noone around"

Ebury Down (Nick Lowe) from Despite It All

I find it impossible to listen to their music without smiling and thinking of summer.

The gift of the gab (short story)

I suppose you're wondering how an innocent, or fairly innocent, PR guy from England ended up in the cellar of an Italian deli in Toronto waiting for the Mafia bosses upstairs to decide how they were going to 'take care of me', or take care of me. To tell the truth, so am I. The start of the slippery slope was a year ago, in the form of a coincidence or accident. Back then, I was still working for a big public relations agency - although these days they prefer to brand themselves as 'relationship managers' or 'image consultants'. Whatever. Anyway, I won't bother telling you their name: you won't have heard of them. Only in England, I used to say bitterly, would you get a PR company that prized modesty and self-deprecation. They managed to stay below everybody's radar, including that of their clients, and money was always tight.

The firm had a fixed rule about travel expenses: if the client is paying, go first class, if the company's paying, go coach. As a result, I had become wearily resigned to arriving at obscure little airfields, miles from the labeled destination, at the whim of inventive bargain airlines. I had argued in vain before that the cost in time and energy of dealing with the transit links outweighed any saving in the fare, and repeated this opinion at length while preparing for a trip to Stockholm for a client presentation. My tantrum extracted a vague promise from the office manager that they would have a go at organising a car to pick me up from the airport while I was in the air.

So when I arrived in the cold, dark, windswept, hangar and trudged through customs, I was pleased to see a smartly-dressed chauffeur at the barrier holding a sign for "Mr Wite". I was used to answering to multiple personalities thanks to the vagaries of phonetics and accents, so I greeted him, gave him my bag, and gratefully entered the cosy interior of the hotel's courtesy car. After a painless and worry-free half hour, we reached the hotel. The driver gave me my case on the steps and was hailed by a departing guest; within seconds he was off again, leaving me to walk to reception. The hotel seemed well above our usual budget, but I wasn't complaining. It was only when I came to register that things came unstuck: the booking wasn't for me, Dick Wright, but for a Gary White, who was presumably still standing at the airport. The staff apologized for the mistake, and directed me to a nearby hotel which had vacancies. I was happy: I had been spared a lot of hassle and some expense.

It was only later that I realized that this was a trick that could be used deliberately: whenever I didn't fancy using public transport, I could pick out a driver with a name sign (proving that they didn't know the person they were meeting) and be whisked away. I tried this a few times, with varying success: sometimes I found myself ensconced in a pre-paid luxury room, sometimes there was a long and loud exchange of views on the steps of a run-down hotel. But it wasn't dull, and it was free, and I could usually employ my eloquence to escape any consequences.

The cost became a significant factor for me when I started to work on my own, my employers having tired of my freely-imparted wisdom. Unfortunately, clients proved hard to find. When I heard that Deano Rosso, the film star, was in need of representation, I had little choice but to max out my credit card on a plane ticket to Toronto in the hope of signing him up. Deano liked to call himself the Italian Rapscallion, but he was more generally known in the industry at The Meathead. He was a jerk, more famous for his bizarre and outrageous off-screen behaviour than for his talent. But I wasn't a critic: somebody with a lot of negative press attention was somebody who needed a publicity handler. His previous spokesman, who had tipped me off, was entering witness protection, having testified to a grand jury about some of Deano's earlier exploits.

So I arrived at Toronto needing a cheap way to the city centre. My spirits also needed lifting after seven hours sitting between a loquacious woman from Yorkshire impervious to her audience's indifference and a teenager whose earphones leaked tinny rock music for the entire flight. I was on the look-out for a suitable ride; there wasn't a lot of choice, so I had to answer to a different surname: I selected the name 'Giorgio', held up by a thin man in his twenties wearing sunglasses, a dark tie and sharp suit. When I went up to him, he simply nodded and led me silently to an old-fashioned limo with tinted windows. The interior smelt of leather; I sank back into the seat and enjoyed the ride. After the freeway and main route, we dived off into a tangle of smaller streets and smoothly drew up outside an old-fashioned building festooned with Italian flags. It wasn't a hotel: it was a deli. That's odd, I thought, while mentally I started to prepare an exit line so I could walk off. Before I had a chance, the driver had opened the door and hustled me across the pavement, through the deserted shop, to a staircase behind the counter. Here two more men were standing, also dressed in suits and sunglasses. The straps of shoulder holsters were visible beneath their jackets. I started to speak but was silenced by their immediate response: raising a finger to their lips. One pointed up the stairs, so I started to climb. There was a wood-panelled door; I knocked and entered.

The room was set out for a formal function: a table ran the length of it; on the far side were sat a row of men, dressed in suits. In the centre was a white-haired man, his thick fingered hands resting on the white tablecloth in a gesture of welcome. An empty chair was in the centre of the room, facing him; I sat in it as instructed. A little light entered the room through the vertical blinds on the street frontage; there were no other windows.

'You're probably wondering why you're here,' he started, 'after all- Vince Bellow's been in charge of this town since whenever. For a hundred years we have looked after ourselves. We have strong family traditions, and loyalties, and of course we have our commercial operations, our funders, and our colleagues in uniform. We're proud of our record. But we must be realistic - we cannot live on our past glories. And we have a problem.'

The men seated at his sides, who had been nodding smugly, leaned forward with interest.

'Over the last few years, the police and the FBI have been chipping away at us, and since Peter Safowicz became DA, we can’t move. They seem to know every member, follow every automobile, they track emails, tap phones, and check bank accounts. And they're beginning to get somewhere - it's not just the foot soldiers any more. They're moving up the hierarchy. Some of the fall guys are making deals; the city has lost its respect for us. They ain't scared of us no more. Our old friends in the police force can't help. They can tell us what's going on, but they can't protect us. We need to roll this back. That's where you come in, Mr Giorgio.'

I had been listening to his speech with mounting horror, and at last had my chance to speak. Unfortunately, my mouth flapped wordlessly and so he continued.

'We got a plan, you see, a perfect plan. If we are too well-known to get away with anything like that, we'll bring in an outsider. That's why you're here. Next Saturday, my daughter is getting married in the cathedral. The entire organisation will be there. I've invited politicians, police and the media. We'll have the firmest alibis ever seen. And while we're there, you'll be doing your job: shooting Safowicz. That should stop the rot and get the FBI running scared.'

He paused to look at his colleagues, savouring their evident relief. He smiled a little until I spoke.

'I'm sorry,' I started, my voice coming out as a squeak, 'there's been a mistake. Your driver picked up the wrong man. I'm Dick Wright, from England.'

Bellow gestured to someone behind me. I was pushed back into the chair and patted.

'He's clean. No wires or weapons', the searcher reported. Bellow relaxed a little. A thought struck him, and he turned to his neighbour, who was looking worried.

'Well Michael, where the fuck is our man?' he asked.

Michael produced his cell phone and started to punch at the buttons. Others started to mutter, the mood of confidence evaporating in an instant. Bellow tapped the table. Silence fell obediently.

'The plan is still sound: we just gotta wait. Take this pansy downstairs. We'll decide what to do with him later.'

So there I was, unwontedly privy to Mafia secrets, the condemned man in a cell, as good as. No doubt their best approach would be to kill me and dump the body somewhere obscure. I wouldn't be missed for days. Self-pity washed over me.

But then I started to rally. Maybe I wasn't going to make a pitch to Rosso. From a management perspective, though, the Mafia sounded like a business in trouble, with major reputation problems. The big secret with good PR is understanding your client's psychology, and I could sense how Bellow was feeling.

If I begged for mercy, he'd crush me like a cockroach without a thought. But he was astute enough to recognize that his operation was in a difficult situation, where his old certainties no longer applied. He had to be a leader, but he had no real idea where he was going. That was his weakness, and maybe I could exploit it by showing him a way out. I'd have to be convincing, though - I'd be pitching for my life, literally. And to make any impression I'd have to transform myself in their eyes from a quivering effeminate wimp to a master of business. I started to smarten myself up, and paced up and down the room, rehearsing phrases in my head. Then I knocked on the door: the guard glanced in without interest.

'Tell your boss I've got a deal to make,' I said.

He shrugged and led me back upstairs. As we approached the room, raised voices could be heard, which continued as we entered.

Michael was staring at his phone in disbelief. 'Are you telling me he was here? He landed? But the Feds got him? Shit!'

A concerned murmur ran round the room. I stepped forward and spoke loudly.

'You've got a problem - I've got a solution.'

The room quietened a little. Bellow gestured for silence, then spoke.

'You -help us? How? Right now you ain't got much of a future. Unless you're a sharpshooter?'

'No. I am an expert, though, at what I do. Which is to help organizations. I tell you what: you give me ten minutes to make my case. If by the end you haven't got three new actions based on my advice, you can shoot me.'

'Thanks for the permission,' Bellow smirked, but I could tell he was interested.

'I'll start with the obvious. You seem to be surprised that the police can spot you. But I could spot you, just because of the way you dress. Wearing sunglasses indoors, cars with tinted windows: you might as well put up a sign saying Something illegal happening here. Why do you think rock starts go around like that: is it so nobody notices them? I don't think so.'

One of the men quietly removed his sunglasses, prompting sniggers from his neighbours, and from Bellow.

'More generally, though,' I continued, 'you wear a uniform. Nobody wears suits any more.'

I lost the room: they sat back, offended.

'No, come on. There was a time, a generation ago, when you'd be wearing the same sort of clothes as everyone else: a little sharper, a little better cut, but broadly comparable. You haven't moved on: everyone else has. Again, you're standing out from the crowd. I can see why you might want to, but it’s not helping you at the moment. You think you're the only people with this problem? Every family business runs into this: there comes a time when the traditions and skills can no longer help, and you risk losing out to newer firms who are better attuned to the new opportunities.'

I stepped across to the window and opened the blinds. Those sat nearest the window flinched a little, as if half expecting a sniper's bullet; they then attempted to look unruffled.

'Look out there: main street. Small shops, small businesses. I suppose you go round and pick up protection: bags of coins, some low-value bank notes. The city's moved on, leaving just the small change behind. And see that office block: International Trading Partners, it says. What do they do? I have no idea- nor do you, or anyone. It's just an office; I bet the police walk past that every day without ever going inside. They could be running complex currency fraud, for all we know. Electronic money. And the beauty of it is that they can look after themselves. Their security is tight: they've got CCTV, and they've got guards who wear weapons openly. Just think about it!'

It was clear that I was persuading them.

'But let's go back to basics. Your ancestors looked for the opportunities of the time, and took them. You need to do the same. Think big. You know these boiler rooms: rooms full of scammers chiselling a few hundred dollars from investors' savings. Hard work, for little gain, when you think abouyt something like Enron, or Madoff's hedge fund. Reputable people queuing up to hand over their cash, no questions asked: that's the way to go!'

'And here isn't really the place to do it; you're wide open to scrutiny. You should follow the legitimate businesses out of town: get your own building in the middle of nowhere, with a perimeter fence and secure parking.'

Suddenly, people's eyes widened. I'd done it. They started nodding.

'That's what I've been saying,' whined one.

'It would help with the commute: I spend goddam hours on the freeway,' said another.

'We could have a firing range in the basement.'

Bellow looked around at the buzzing room, approving. He clapped his hands for silence.

'I'm impressed. You're smarter than you look. But now you're solving our problems for us, what's your big plan? How do we change?'

'That's not really my area, but since you ask me, I'd say you need to reposition yourselves in the market. Your old operations are the ones that are generating all this police interest. You could close them down, but it might be better to sell them off to your competition: you get the cash, they get to deal with the law. If you felt like it, you might even drop a few hints to the police: you won't be needing to pay them off anymore. But that's up to you. The biggest problem you'd have left is that there will be a lot of loose ends, unsolved crimes. I'd suggest persuading a few people to confess to all of them, and that would be that. I think my time's up.'

Bellow stood up and extended his hand. I shook it as firmly as I could.

'So why are you in town?' he asked.

I explained about my quest for a client to represent.

A little later we parted on good times and I stumbled to a hotel. The next morning, I tracked down Rosso's apartment and arrived there. He seemed hungover and confused, but was happy enough to see me.

'Hiya,' he mumbled, 'I hear you're good.'

I wondered who might have praised me, before I remembered that the Italian community was probably quite well-connected.

'Well, you've got the job: you can start straight off.'

For the second time in two days, things were looking up.

'Now,' he continued, 'I've had some trouble, and the press are all over it again. What you gotta know to start with is, I swear I thought that sheep was female.'


THE END

Copyright Martin Locock

Overheard

Image Wikimedia Author Sergiodarkblue


"I met Pink once at a party. I couldn't miss the chance, so I asked her if she wanted to go upstairs and make out.

She looked me up and down and said 'You wouldn't last five minutes!'

'That's all it takes, love,' I told her, 'that's all it takes'."

Belonging: author's notes

My poem "Belonging" has been found by a string of students undertaking an assignment on, I guess, poetry and belonging, and I thought it might be helpful to them to expalin a bit about why and how I wrote it and what it means (or what I want it to mean, which may not be the same thing). If you are writing an assignment, before reading any further, check your instructions: you may find that you are forbidden from looking at any contextual information, in which case: stop now, you're on your own.

Still here? Ok. Although I had thought a bit about the nature of belonging, it was only when it was set as a subject for a competition that it crystallised into a poem. The competition was part of an eisteddfod (an annual literary and musical competition held in Wales); one of the best things about Welsh culture is its acceptance that poetry is a normal activity for normal people, devoid of the class warfare and exclusivity common in England, where I grew up. I predicted, pretty accurately, that such a topic would inspire a good deal of maundering about hwyl a hiraeth (joy and longing), on being at home or being away. But I was in a different situation. The whole question of Welshness has become politicised and polarised, with careful distinction between those Welsh by descent (Welsh parents, born in Wales or elsewhere), Welsh by birth (born in Wales, with non-Welsh parents), and Welsh by choice (incomers who considered themselves Welsh). I fall into the latter category: I had never been able to summon much enthusiasm for the land and folk of my birth. I remained interested, or perhaps fascinated, by those for whom nationality and loyalty had required no choice or thought. I explain this at some length to suggest where my sympathies may lie in the poem; the text is understated in the weight it places on each group.

The form of the poem is driven by two constraints: the abab rhyming pattern for each stanza, and the self-imposed rule that the word order should be natural and stresses should fall naturally at the end of lines. The technical skill involved is trying to seem as if the words were those that would be chosen in any case, but just happened to rhyme. There is one weak line which I dislike: the last line of the first stanza, where 'recedes' isn't quite the right action.

In the third stanza, the last line's 'shout' was suggested by the rhyme, but I'm happy enough with the opposition of love's seductive whisper and fame's more overt and aggressive shout.

The final stanza is intended to suggest the feeling of peace and calm that greets a restless traveller once they have found what they are looking for. There remains some ambivalence in the poem about the power and positive and negative effects of the feeling of belonging, a sense in that it is viewed from the outside, for better or worse.

Some people are born where they belong,
Their home and family supply all needs:
The glow of hearthlight waxes strong
The call of the wider world recedes.

And some search long but never find
A spot where they can set up base
At last they must become resigned
To moving on from place to place

And some again, the lucky few
Are urged to leave, and to seek out
An individual rendezvous
With love's whisper or fame's shout

Belonging is a state of mind
Tranquility its foremost fruit
Sought by all, but many find
It cannot grow without a root

New readers start here

Welcome to A Few Words, a writing blog I have been maintaining since 2004, off and on. Most visitors end up here after searching for a Marks and Spencer food advert parody , analysis of Bob Dylan's Desolation Row, Highlands, or Blowin' in the wind, or background about Sandi Thom's mysterious rise to fame. None of which represent the best or most interesting of the material.

Good places to start are:

Change and Decay:
a long short story about an archivist's visit to a crumbling gentry estate (this was posted in chapters here but is presented in the right order in its own blog; it can aslo be downloaded as a free pdf, or bought on paper, from Lulu.com;

Written in your heart:
a radio play about Friends Reunited, old girlfriends, and midlife crises;

Dooced:
a radio play about an employment tribunal for an employee sacked for blogging about her work (life shortly therafter imitating Art, or at least artifice, in the form of Petite Anglaise);

Martin Amis criticism:
A long-term endeavour to cover all of his works, eventually, if I don't lose patience with his current rabble-rousing geopolitical insights first;


Stuff which won't be found here is poetry, which is at Complete and Utter Poetry, and archaeological project management, which is at 10 Simple Steps.


This post is a sticky and will stay at the top until I get bored with it.

How to beat writer's block

There are two different types of writer's block:

• when you know what you should be writing but cannot settle down to it;


• and when you don't know what to do at all.

The second type is hard to address: where do ideas come from, after all? The best solution is avoidance: write down any ideas you might have as you go along. I've got a couple of things that have been on my to-do list for over a year now (Martin Amis book reviews); that's ok, they are there, not going anywhere, and I can move on to them if I finish or get fed up with the more active projects.

But the first type is the main one people mean. It seems so much more attractive to do anything but what you need to. I'm sure that one of the reasons that novelists these days go overboard on research, as if they were writing a text book rather than a work of fiction, is that it's a good way of putting off the fateful moment of having to put it down. From my experience, I think, much as stage fright for actors (which is perhaps a closely comparable phenomenon), writer's block is an expected, perhaps mandatory, element of the writing process; it is therefore not an admission of failure when it occurs. But it is a practical problem, and here are some tips that might help:

write the stuff you want to

I had planned out The Time Zone Rule for a long time but somehow couldn't face the task of scene setting, introducing the characters, and giving them their back-stories: the interesting bit of the story to me was the development of the central relationship from a sexual to a fraternal one. So I decided to start writing there and deal with the introductories later; as it turned out, I left the story in the order written, rather than in chronological order.

If what you're writing doesn't interest you, I don't think it will work for anyone else. One point I realised was that you can use the narrative freedom to describe what you want to: you could describe someone making a cup of tea, if you wanted to, or you could jump straight to the next incident.


switch projects
If you are inspired to work on something, go for it. I've had several ideas that have jumped the queue because I was ready to advance them. nThat's good, not bad.


plan
If you don't want to apply yourself to the grind of writing a scene or chapter, why not spend some time planning out the plot instead? Although I don't think you have to plan, it provides a great safety net for inspiration and allows you to start building in ironies and hints.

organise
There's a lot of tedious record-keeping, filing, proofreading etc hwich needs to be done; do that instead.

re-write
Go through the complete draft elements and see whether they can be improved: they probably can.

go for walk
Define your specific problem: is it a sentence? a character? a plot element?
Then go and do something else and come back with the best solution you have come up with.


Or, of course, you can write something else, like a blog post, rather than get the radio script written (it's a long story, but not yet long enough).

What music companies don't get about the web

A lot of people writing on the web criticise music companies for their antiquated approach to managing digital rights, ie by trying to control them. 'Why can't it be free?' they ask, apparently unconcerned with the impact of such a change on the artists they profess to admire. Experiments in giving away material for free have had an uneven history: Prince is presumably happy to have sold out his O2 concerts on the back of handing out his CD, but Radiohead are less sure. But as long as music companies exist and artists hope to make a living from their creative content, making stuff free can only be a tactical gimmick rather than standard policy. So, perhaps against the conventional wisdom, I would say that music companies are right to be worried about copyright evasion on the internet, right to attempt to prevent it, and right to take action against those who facilitate it.

Which is not to say that I think they 'get' the web. They don't. Over the last year I have been looking at the online presence of a range of artists, from Kate Bush, superstar, Sandi Thom, contemporary minor chart artist, Nick Lowe, cult artist, to Roy Harper, forgotten cult artist. What they have in common is that in terms of the web they are spread all over the place: a My Space page, artist home page, record label page, wikipedia entry, YouTube videos, and fan sites, and they are represented inconsistently in each. For example, when Sandi Thom was promoting her last single on her website and MySpace page, the record label website didn't even mention it. Nick Lowe's latest release, At My Age, didn't have a wikipedia page until I created one. The only good examples of use of the web as a promotional and information tool were for Neil Young and Graham Parker.

But why is it so bad? Partly because looking after the web takes time: somebody has to sit down and update the pages, respond to queries, etc; it isn't clear whether this responsibility should fall on the artist, management, or label, and so in many cases it is done by nobody.

Underlying this is the more basic problem: music companies are used to a B2B (business-to-business) model, where they produced the physical product and handled promotion, but supplied the product to shops to sell to the consumer. Their 'audience' was therefore made up of retailers on the one hand and media on the other. They are completely unequipped for the activity of selling things direct to consumers: this is reflected in the reluctance of record companies to get involvced with selling digital downloads of their songs from their sites: usually, potential buyers are sent to itunes to buy it, letting them take a share of the revenue. Similarly, physical product is sold via Amazon.

Another result is a total focus on the new and exciting. In most businesses, it is much harder to reach new customers than to keep existing ones. The music business is obsessed with selling new artists to teenagers, generally through the singles chart. But that is only part of the market. Why not exploit the older consumer, with more time and money, who might be persuaded, fairly easily, to buy back-catalogue CDs, DVDs and books from an artist they like, or liked?; this is a market which has outgrown the need for things to be free: even a full-price CD is cheap cmpared to other expenses. A sensible music company would make damned sure that its artist profiles covered past as well as present and had links to sell things.

In the past the media, particularly radio, were the best way of reaching out to potential purchasers, but the web provides others. This should, eventaully, change the practices of the industry: it may become economically viable for some artists to sell very small numbers of tracks, as long as they don't cost much to produce and promote. The danger (from the companies' point of view) is that they may have little role, since the artists may be quite capable of handling it themselves.

But it is strange when audiences for broadcast media are declining and fragmenting, that there is a new audience on the web eager for information and opportunities to buy, and they are being ignored or left to the mercies of established players like itunes.

UPDATE
Holly A Hughes suggests, correctly, that artists should see this as an essential part of their brand. I'm not sure I agree about the fan forum, though: I've seen a lot of tumbleweed forums which make you feel that you are distrubing the dead (Sandi Thom's, for one, but even Kate Bush's has gone very quiet in last last year).

File under fiction: available now from Lulu.com

This debut collection of short stories by Martin Locock ranges from the misadventures of an archivist dealing with a landed family to a solicitor's obsession with a perfect family seen through a window.

The stories are fast-paced, sexy and funny.

Contents:

Preface

Change and Decay

An archivist meets a gentry family amid a decaying estate and reveals some family history they had wanted to conceal.

"The train muttered and grunted to a halt, and the doors hissed open. I stepped out onto the deserted platform- none of my fellow-passengers were inspired to alight. I walked through an archway, leaning to even out the weight of the laptop case and suitcase, past spare mail trolleys queued for an unexpected pre-Christmas rush. A bus timetable yellowed behind a cracked glass display, ready to be sold to some transport museum as a bygone."

Read it online.


Exchange Mechanism

Developing a telepathy machine presents an opportunity for misuse and manipulation.

"I had got used to the prevarications of a a series of boyfriends who would drag out our vidchats interminably on the offchance of catching a glimpse of my roommate Kristin walking around in the background. Although I'd tell them at the earliest opportunity that they were wasting their time (Kristin was 100% lezz), that didn't stop them looking."

Read it online.


Candles on the Table

What looked like the perfect family hides a dark secret.

"Stephen looked to the far side of the road, and saw a small neat cottage; one of the downstairs rooms was lit, and he could make out, with intrusive clarity, a woman setting cutlery on the table. Two candles were already burning in elegant simple candlesticks. On the wall behind the table there were small framed pictures and blue-and-white plates. He was enchanted, as much by the room as the figure; he had once thought that he would occupy such a house, everything just so."

Read it online.


The Time Zone Rule

Two colleagues are sent at short notice to Morocco; they succumb to the romance of the situation but then have to deal with the consequences.

"Sue's people carrier circled the staff car park while she became increasingly frustrated. Her criteria for what constituted an adequate space dropped ever lower. Designated personal parking spaces had been abolished the year before in a fit of executive egalitarianism, on the advice of a touchy-feely consultancy brought in to make the company 'a happier place to work'. It wasn’t working for her today, she thought grimly, gritting her teeth."

Not available online.


A night like this

A music reviewer picks up a girl at a Dylan gig in 1974.

Read it online.


The Grand Tour

A tourist in Italy spends the perfect afternoon sitting in a station cafe watching the world go by.

Not available online.


A place of learning

Newbury University's Religious Studies department is rife with internal politics, complacency and frustration, while outside the comfortable Anglican certainties crumble.


Author's Notes

"Change and decay owes its title only indirectly to the hymn 'Abide with me'. I first encountered the phrase when reading Scoop at an impressionable age in my teens: it seemed to me at the time to be most perfect novel ever written, an opinion I have had little reason to alter. Re-reading it recently I became aware of how much of the atmosphere of country house living I had imbibed, reflected in Change and decay."

Not available online

About the Author

"I was born in Barrow-in-Furness, a grim grey shipbuilding town on the north end
of Morecambe Bay, drenched in the drizzle of the Irish Sea. Terraces huddled
beneath the silhouettes of cranes; as the hooter sounded the streets would fill
with tired but boisterous riveters and boilermakers heading for pub, chip shop,
or home, as preference and finance dictated.I cannot claim, however, that I
absorbed much of this atmosphere into my personality. By the age of 6
months I had left forever."

Not available online

188pp, 6" x 9"

It can be ordered from Lulu.com as a book or digital download.