In Praise of the Printed Page, Books

Books, famously, furnish a room.  Especially a library.  Despite the rise and rise of the eReader, the tablet and the audiobook, hardback and paperback books continue to be popular, sold in bookshops, on the high street.  It’s like three endangered species banded together to buck the trend.

The conventional book is superior to its electronic bastard offspring in a number of ways.

Firstly, a book is in and of itself a precious object, especially if you are paying full whack for a hardback.  It’s something that makes you happy to buy it, happy to read it and then happy to own it.  Because books are decorative, as stated above.

It is well known that the right sort of vintage Penguin (book, not animal or biscuit) jutting jauntily from your pocket can attract the right sort of romantic partner, that is, the sort of romantic partner who knows that anyone with a Penguin edition of ‘The 39 Steps’ or ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ is exactly the sort of chap or chappess with whom a romantic fling would be just the thing.  It if further known that a small stack of the right sort of reading material by the bedside is an indicator of good character and conducive to frolics and a good night’s sleep in exactly the same way that a collection of soft toys in the bedroom is not.  We then progress to a decent bookshelf, bookcase and, finally if you are fortunate enough to have the space, the means and the tolerant partner, a room one can designate a ‘study’ or, if you are exceptionally fortunate, a ‘library’.

The difference between a study and a library is a narrow one.  Broadly, a study has books and a desk and a sensible chair with a stiff back.  Captain’s chairs are permitted, although the rule of ownership is not unlike the rules permitting one to play international rugby for a particular country, one must have a seafarer in the immediate family, or one must have been a seafarer for a number of years.  Whereas a library has a table, usually cluttered with books, and a comfortable chair near a good light source that can be used for reading, or dimmed for short or even extended periods of contemplation.  The other main difference is that a library will have 2/3 more decanters of booze available.

Studies are, increasingly, in the news.  Literally.  No news programme it would appear is complete without a video link interview with an expert in something, or at least with somebody who has a tweed jacket and some strong opinions.  In such cases, the person speaking from their home increasingly takes pains to ensure that the backdrop is not of a microwave and a fridge with a shopping list stuck to it, the contents of which would make one doubt the value of any opinion somebody who actively purchases ‘Nutella’ might espouse.  Instead, they ensure that their background is bookish.

If the interviewee is an academic, then they will ensure that the only book not conventionally shelved, but rather with the front cover prominently displayed, is their latest work.  If they are a writer then the shelves will display their collected works, including translations.  If they are a politician then political biographies are the thing, Churchill for tories, Bevan for Labour, Stalin for the Labour front bench.  Multiple biographies of Hitler are permitted for military historians only, anyone who owns more than three biographies of Hitler and does not teach history at a decent Polytechnic or educationally equivalent establishment should be placed on some sort of watch list.

Given the news is pretty ghastly, the only time one really needs to flip it to HD is to either try to work out if Fiona Bruce has had some more work done, or to decode the bookcase of an interviewee, and then judge them.

We have lost album artwork and sleeve notes to the digital download, thankfully we still have the art of the book cover, although famously that’s no way of judging a book.

Having the book’s title visible is, however, an excellent way of judging who, and who not, to sit next to on public transport.

Review: Lost Mars

Classic science fiction.

I’d like to describe this as good old-fashioned science fiction, but not only is that not quite true, but it’s probably an oxymoron, how can you have old-fashioned science fiction?  Although, ‘oxymoron’ is a word that would fit neatly into this collection of stories, possibly Martian terraformer worker slang to describe one who is profligate or unwise with their air supply on Mars.

‘Lost Mars’ is a collection of short stories about the red planet edited, very well, by Mike Ashley, beginning with a short story from H. G. wells published in 1897 and concluding with a shirt story from 1963 by J. G. Ballard.  This proves not just the enduring attraction of romantic fiction about the red planet, but that if you want to write science fiction, it does no harm at all to have two initials instead of a first name.

The stories are varied in style and tone, but there is a theme.  Fittingly for a collection of stories written and published many years ago, forgotten by some and presented here to be freshly discovered in this exceptional collection, many of the stories are about archaeology.  There seems to be an overwhelming belief, usually inspired by the popular scientific theories of the time, that although Mars might be a dead world, it was once host to an advanced civilization, now long gone, the legacy of which is there to be discovered.

This book really is a treasure, and every story is a gem.

The editor has also contributed in no small way to the reader’s enjoyment.  The introduction, so often the part of the book one flips past so as to not prejudice enjoyment or, worse, encounter spoilers, is a thoughtful and informative piece.  Each story comes with a very brief introduction.  The editor has a voice here, but he does not outstay his welcome.

The stories themselves are superb.  I found myself noting down the names of those science fiction writers that I was unfamiliar with, as based on the strength of their stories here, there are authors here that should make their way into any science fiction lovers’ To Be Read pile.  Science fiction fans always have a To Be read pile, as science fiction fans rarely leave any second hand bookshop without grasping a really lovely, if slightly foxed, paperback edition of a ‘classic’ possibly long out of print, the cover of which would now not be acceptable as a result of the MeToo movement.  You know the ones.

This, then, is one of those books that you make time to read, by not doing other stuff.  This is a ‘just another ten minutes’ short story collection.  This is the sort of short story collection where, after making the deal with yourself that you will stop at the end of this story, leads you to start the next one, just to enjoy the contrast.  Just another ten minutes.

It’s the classic case of a book you race through and regret finishing.

The collection tracks the trajectory of the development of thoughtful science fiction.  Although perhaps ‘development’ is not quite the word because the first story is just as good as the last.  The stories could be in any order, but it’s fascinating to read them chronologically.

Although you could be forgiven for flipping straight to the Bradbury as a visitor to an art gallery would go straight to the da Vinci, his story is, heresy alert, among equals here.

There’s a delightful H. G. Wells short story that, like all great science fiction, is much more about the human condition than the alien one, a charming oddity from a forgotten, except by those who know better, writer that’s effectively a postcard from the past, a fabulous repost to the Menace From Space genre, a great tale of prospecting in a harsh environment that just happens to be set on Mars, a corking tale of an expedition to Mars, and The Bradbury, which is the gateway to the modern era of tales which concludes the collection.

Finally, a word about the edition.  A tremendous front cover redolent of every science fiction magazine you ever held and loved as a child.

Recommended.

Happy birthday Adrian Mole

Adrian Mole is 50 apparently.  Anyone who is 50 or thereabouts will be familiar with the character, and at least with the first book in the series.  'The secret diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 and 3/4' by Sue Townsend was a phenomenon book, just as many years later another book about an adolescent with spectacles would be.  Children everywhere wanted to read it, and because anything that gets kids reading is a good thing (well, anything short of out and out porn, and even then prose only is probably tolerated) it became, justly, a best seller.  I recall the first words from the school librarian when getting a tour of the school library.  'Yes, we have coped of Adrian Mole.  They are all out on loan'.

There are lots of reasons cited for the success of the book, but in truth it's probably down to it having a different appeal depending on the reader.  To some teens it would speak directly to their feelings of isolation, confusion and alienation, feelings that they would carefully cultivate because, well, that's what being a teenager is about.  Ditto sexual frustration, no matter what a hysterical media would have you believe about teenage proclivities, even back then.  Certainly when I was reading this book the was no such thing as sexual frustration, because nobody was sufficiently sophisticated to recognise frustration in any realm beyond possibly that of the lawnmower repeatedly jamming in long grass.

It must have introduced many teens to a more sophisticated world.  I was about 20 before I knew that BBC Radios 3 and 4 even existed.  Radio 1 was for ve kidz, Radio 2 for Mum and Dad.

Actually, thinking about it, that's not quite true.  Mum liked 'A book at bedtime'.  It was as a youth I heard my first Shipping Forecast but, so unsophisticated was I, I thought it was a weather forecast for trawlermen.  Now of course I understand that it is the longest running avaunt guard poetry recital in the history of broadcasting.

For me, it was all about the funny.  Adrian Mole was hysterical.  This proved to be a problem because if you are reading long after bedtime, under a duvet thick enough to repel werewolves ('more tog = less dog' as we used to say), then you could use a torch safely, but had to muffle your guffaws.  Parents are probably used to turning a deaf ear to many unusual sounds emanating from a teen bedroom, but booming laughter in the wee small hours on a school night rather gives the game away.

This, I remember, was the book I read in the back seat of the car on a long drive to or from a family holiday.  This is back in the days when a combination of reading and travelling and vinyl seats was enough to give you the kind of headache that today would land you in a CAT scanner.  But when travelling with Adrian, it wasn't a problem.

One final thing about sophistication.  I knew that girls could be called Pandora, of course I did.  I was taught Greek myths at school (that and Rural Science are, looking back on it, about all the education you need to navigate modern life).  But the likelihood of actually meeting anyone called Pandora in the West Midlands when I was growing up was about as likely as choosing the new potato option instead of chips to go with your steak when visiting a Berni Inn.

I'm pleased to say that Adrian and I have kept in touch.  His diaries were a continuing delight and he tackled growing older the same way he tackled growing up, equal parts hope and confusion.

I laughed out loud at the early books.  I actually shed a tear or two as some points in the later ones.  If you think that there is shame in that, please do fuck off.

With Sue Townsend gone, it's a great pity his diaries won't continue, I would love to have read what he thought of Brexit, and of course learn whether or not he ended up with Pandora.  He adored her, you know.

Right, I'm off to re-read the series.

Typewriter 2.0

I am once again in a hotel, and I am once again thinking about journalism in general and war correspondents in particular.

It’s a rather pleasant hotel.  It’s in the centre of London, with a view out over the docks to the city (and there is almost everything you need to know about London, if you wrote that on the back of a postcard from the past anywhere else in the world, you would have the mental image of a place of transit smelling of desperation and mackerel, populated by wanton types with earrings, and that’s just the sailors.  The only boats bobbing in the dock here are Sunseekers and the city is the City, proud to leave all the lights on in their huge office blocks to create the impression that everyone is still hard at it after dark, shouting into telephones, Like In The Movies).

The air conditioning is hidden and efficient, there is no lazily rotating ceiling fan that can cross fade to become the rotating blades of a helicopter.  Maybe it’s stealth?

Nevertheless, there’s something about being in a hotel and not being on holiday that makes me think about journalism in general and war correspondents in particular.  I’d like to say it’s the mutual incompatibility of pool toys and AK47s that make any holiday hotel a haven, but sadly that’s no longer true.

So on the strength of my previous post about ambient soundtracks, I should probably be putting together the faux war correspondent soundtrack, era by era.  Let’s start with the 1970s.  Busy traffic, foreign murmuring, farting scooters, the occasional mooing of an ox, the whup whup whup of a Huey passing overhead and the clackity clack (‘don’t talk back!’) of the typewriter.

Vietnam was, I have read, the first televised war.

There have been plenty since.  I remember ITV reporting Afghanistan.  Film reports of Sandy Gall sitting in a cave somewhere in Afgan, breaking (unleavened) bread with the Taliban, who were off to beat back the Russians. 

And of course the Falklands.  ‘I counted them all out, I counted them all back’.  A Union Flag waving from the top of an aerial as a squaddie yomped to Port Stanley and Victory.

Gulf War I and Gulf War II.  Gulf War I was night vision cameras on tanks streaking across the desert.  Gulf War II took things to the next level, that next level being vertical as we were treated to footage of the nosecone cam of a bunker buster.  Not to mention the ‘shock and awe-shit there goes that little place that does great falafel’ of the opening night bombardment.

Gulf War II was the last television war.  Now, conflict plays out on snapchat and Twitter, barbarism on Youtube.

What the medium of the next Big One will be I’m not sure.  Possibly when the nukes start flying, the next war will be recorded by the cave paintings of the survivors but actually I think a more realistic prospect will be that the next major conflict will be reported by ABC when it’s a throw down between the Red and the Blue, rather than the Grey and the Blue.  I think Blue won last time?

Vietnam was certainly a reporters’ war.  It also produced memoirs and collections of reportage and, of course, a load of great movies (although the greatest war movie ever made is ‘Where Eagles Dare’, followed by ‘The Eagle Has Landed”, followed by ‘Heartbreak Ridge’.  Basically, if it has ‘Eagle or Clint, it’s all good).

As previously reported from the front line in Salisbury, I’m pretty sure that my ancient Powerbook could stop a .303 round that would take down a Decepticon, but I would rather like it if the keyboard sounds could be set to different themes.  Obviously ‘space’ and ‘rainforest’ or similar would be popular, but I’m attracted to the idea of ‘quill’ and, of course ‘Imperial typewriter’.

For the (written) record, I once owned an electric typewriter, a Brother, once plugged in and placed upon a table, typing generated a report like a fucking artillery barrage.  Hardly the sort of thing to write tender love poetry upon, that ladies could then read, and frot themselves senseless to.

I like the sound of that

Short version:  go here, it’s great!

http://www.ambient-mixer.com/

What environment do readers like to read in?  Well, apparently there are a few requirements.  Adequate lighting, obviously, because anyone who has a book that illuminates itself should properly be briefly illuminated themselves, during their incineration as a witch.  A comfy chair, and by this I mean chair in its wider sense, which is something roughly the size of a sofa, with a footstool for raising feet (essential to avoid DVT during prolonged reading bouts) and a couple of blankets.  That’s the basics and I think we can all agree that it’s a contravention of your human rights not to have at least that.  Further research though has revealed certain specific acoustic requirements which, perhaps surprisingly, are as far from ‘sussssshhhhhh’ and silence as can be.

A gentle background murmur appears to be desirable, composed of three elements and muted by very particular acoustic countermeasures.

Firstly, rain pattering against the window. Not necessarily full on ‘oh my Christ is the lighthouse going over I’ve not seen a storm like this since 1806?’ rain, just enough rain to make you glad that you are a) inside and b) not required to water the garden tonight, freeing up essential reading time.

Secondly, a crackling fire.  That means a log fire.  Log fires crackle in a pleasing way.  Ever had a log fire?  Wonderful, log fires are more Bloke than punching a bull to death to save a baby from being gored.  You build the log fire, you light the log fire, you blow on the log fire, you poke the log fire, a lot, and you feed it logs.  You end the evening smelling pleasingly of wood smoke, like an upmarket ham.  Log fires are also excellent for developing and passing on Bloke Lore. Here’s a tip, always dry out the wood.  You may think ‘G&P, you massive arsehole, the wood will dry out on the fire, that’s one of the things fire is really good for’.  And you are right, but it will also mean you don’t get so much a pleasing crackle, more a succession of loud cracks that sound like the conclusion of a drug deal gone bad.  Not relaxing.

Thirdly, murmur.  Want total silence when you’re reading?  You do?  OK.  Go away, read ‘Salem’s Lot and come back and tell me you like to read in total silence.

(Waits).

You fouled yourself at the first unexpected noise, didn’t you?  No disgrace, but a gentle background hum of voices will assure you that you are not going to be devoured by vampires.

So, why is this not distracting?  Because it’s muted by the acoustic baffles that are thick curtains over the windows and, oh I don’t know, some sort of primitive arrangement of sound dampening produced by softening the lines of the walls by installing paper along them.  Bookshelves?  Well I guess that would work.

So, a desirable acoustic environment would appear to be a Common Room at Hogwarts, rather than the bus, train (sleeper trains excepted) or even the loo (say it ain’t so!).

So how can you take all this with you?  The answer to this, like so many questions about reading, cooking and porn, is found on the internet.  It would appear that people mix their own ambient environments to listen to whist reading.  And having dipped into a few, I have to confess to finding the entire thing wholly enchanting.

Upon initial listen, there are three favourites.  The ‘Gryffindor Common Room’, because why the hell not, ‘Storm on the Hogwarts Express’ because steam train, rain and well, steam train, and finally ‘Sherlock’s apartment’.  Point of order on the last one, Chandler, Monica et al lived in an ‘apartment’, Sherlock and John live in a flat, Holmes and Watson lived in Rooms.  But it’s so good, who cares.

Ambient soundscapes, they’re a thing. They were what made ‘Marathon’ such an immersive game and now they are like a 700 foot tall ice wall against the Shite Talkers and others who would pollute the audible environment when decent people just want to crack on with their reading on the train, bus or at the dinner table with their family.

Boxes of Delight

Red telephone boxes are as much a part of the national landscape, mental and physical, as power pylons or steeples, or at least they used to be.  They used to be a ubiquitous and pleasing feature of cities, towns, villages, hamlets, crossroads and random stretches of ‘road’ in places so rural you’d wonder that Christianity had reached that far, never mind telephony.

Originating in an age when it was far from the norm to have a telephone in the home unless your surname was ‘Bell’, or you were a character in a costume drama, the original function of these architectural and technological delights was to allow people to telephone other people.  But barely had the bright red paint dried before the role of these local landmarks evolved.

The first step in the evolution of the telephone box was its emergence as a dramatic character.  A person goes into a telephone box and rings another person.  So far, so normal.  But an empty telephone box with a ringing ‘phone?  That’s the start of the sort of plot only rivalled by somebody stepping off on to a deserted railway platform to be informed by a ‘suitably’ ‘characterful’ ‘station master’ that no train has stopped here for twenty years.

As more and more homes got more and more ‘phones, the telephone box moved from being the place you went to to make a telephone call to being the place that you went to to make a private telephone call (you could tell an adulterer in times past because they always had lots of loose change), ironic considering that they were constructed out of steel…and glass, and illuminated. 

As technology advanced, telephone boxes took on roles unconnected with calls, booty or otherwise.  The normal place for displaying business cards is, of course, the newsagents’ window, but thanks to the advancement in printing technology and in particular to business card printing machines being made available in service stations and other haunts of lorry drivers and travelling salesmen, and hence by extension to their service sector, prozzers were able to create professional looking business cards cheaply and in volume, and distribute them around telephone boxes.  Telephone boxes took on something of a festive atmosphere, if your idea of festive is a business-card blizzard of smutty invitations, as the interiors of telephone boxes began to look a little like top shelves, festooned with graphic graphics.  Accordingly, a trip to a red call box could resemble a visit to a red light district.

These temples of communication also provided other sorts of relief in times of extremis.  Many a chap, decent chaps, honest chaps, the sort of chap who would shudder to relieve themselves against a tree, well, an oak, well, a listed oak, would of an evening be profoundly glad to happen across a telephone box to answer not a ringing handset but the call of nature.

There was, of course, a protocol to be observed in such cases.  Firstly, one always avoided any tramp that might have taken up residence overnight in a traditional telephone box.  (BT (Bastard Telecom) modified the design of telephone boxes in the 80s, changing them into telephone ‘kiosks’ in a move which perfectly encapsulated a shift from a public service GPO monument to humanity that would serve not only as a tool of communication but shelter from the storm, to a profit-driven monster, putting into service a plexiglazz monstrosity that had a gap all the way around the bottom, presumably to allow the elements to penetrate and so discourage overnight guests.  Or possibly to provide adequate drainage.)  The protocols, famously illustrated by a small sign illustrated by none other than Quinten Blake that used to delight, inform and repulse in equal measure, were that if one was relieving oneself in a telephone box, one always faced away from any observer(s), and always held the handset firmly and confidently gripped in the unemployed hand.  Just a chap, making a call, and if you happen to notice that a chap has his chap (or indeed his penis) in his other hand, then any shocked observer could take comfort in the certainty that urinating is just about the least offensive thing that the occupant of the telephone box can be doing in such a pose.

The telephone box has so often doubled up as a crisis WC that rumour has it that in the days when telephone boxes had telephone directories in them (a forerunner of today’s telephone box libraries, though exclusively stocked with books with lots of characters and not much plot), serious thought was given to printing the directories on soft paper, possible perforated.

The rise in the increase of mobile ‘phone ownership coincided with a decline in courtesy to others and of inhibitions about sharing private details with total strangers.  People making a telephone call no longer sought a soundproof booth but instead favoured busy public transport or hitherto quiet and peaceful spots to make their telephone calls.

So it was that the telephone box fell into disuse.

As a telephone box.

They ceased making money because even though nobody was using them, they still had to be cleaned and occasionally de-tramped.  Slowly telephone boxes started to disappear, airbrushed out of the landscape.  (Sadly, not everyone thought to check to see if mobile ‘phone coverage extended to all the sites now marked not with a proud, glittering. Illuminated, slightly pee-smelling red box, but with a square of concrete.)

Of course, if there were any justice in the world, a succession of small plaques would be sunk into the otherwise anonymous concrete squares that, like the footsteps of telephony prehysteria, now dot the land.  A small plaque to commemorate a huge event, for instance that such-and-such a person ‘phoned their mother and father to inform them they had become grandparents from this site in 1965; that Debbi Broke Up With Darren using this ‘phone box in 1984, that in the same year, Darren confirmed to Debbi’s best friend Mandy that Debbi was a right slag anyway, and did Mandy want to go to out with him? And that in 1993, a profoundly relieved Jeff profoundly relieved himself on this very site.

The ‘problem’ with traditional red telephone boxes is that they have more individual panes of glass in them than the average cathedral, and so are devilish hard to clean, even if not be-tramped.  Naturally, as soon as Bloody Terrible stopped cleansing telephone receivers and started cleansing the landscape of character, the nation revolted.  Anyone who produced rural postcards of a sheep standing by a dry stone wall next to a red telephone box realised that sheep and stone alone just don’t do it.  The middle class mobilised.  In 4x4s.

As a result, many villages have successfully held on to their red telephone boxes (usually the same places that have held on to village greens).  Of course, they may not have managed to hold on to their indigenous population or village youth that has been priced out of the place by second home buyers, but at least the centre of the village still has its crimson totem to modernity.

Now though, more than ever, we know that telephone boxes can fulfil duel functions.

Telephone boxes have, famously, become village libraries, a phenomenon that started in 1994 when a lady in Masham left three copies of Catherine Cookson on a shelf by mistake, started a national trend, and has been too embarrassed to ask for them back since.

And there are yet more modern social uses.  Because it’s not just the internet that’s slow in rural areas. Ambulance response times being what they are in the countryside, there’s been a couple of reactions.  The first is a very practical approach to dealing with any accident involving threshing machinery.  Following the screams and panicked shut down, people pack anything still twitching in frozen peas and then hey ho for the nearest hospital.  Everyone then gathers at the local pub to wait for an update on successful re-attachment.  The first time anyone mentions ‘micro-surgery’ it is the law that somebody must say ‘was it his cock that got cut off’?  Followed by ‘I don’t make the rules’.

The second reaction is the most modern incarnation.  Village defibrillator.

On the face of it, this is a great idea.  With more and more people having more and more unrealistic expectations of their ability to do stuff, like running marathons, staying upright on a bar stool or enduring another fucking day on public transport, it’s a wonder that everyone doesn’t carry around their own defibrillator, like an evacuee carrying around a box on a piece of string that he or she imagines contains a gas mask bust in fact only contains an apologetic note from their mum explaining that their mask has in fact been sold for gin.

Defibrillators are appearing in more and more places.  Like pubs.  And surely that can’t be healthy.  Naturally, if a beloved boozer keels over and pegs it half way down a pint of what the landlord laughingly refers to as his best, then this will lead not just to blokes reading about the demise thinking ‘that’s the way to go’, or indeed the regulars all doing the sort of mental calculation that would boggle Turing to determine when would be the decent time to take up residence on Fatty’s recently vacated bar stool.  It leads to a few charity nights and the proud purchase of a defibrillator for the pub.  Of course, it’s only a short jolt to think that once the locals work out that the thing is rechargeable, they can incorporate it into their evening with, in descending order of idiocy, options including: 1) answering pub quiz questions after having paddles applied to both temples and being ‘zapped’, 2) playing ‘how high can you go’ on the voltage charge, noting that some wag has written ‘Frankenstein’ on one of the settings; 3) playing ‘Jason Statham’ by trying to improvise an anti-bad guy weapon and propel other people across the room by paddling their nipples with electricity; 4) playing doctor by bellowing ‘clear’ and then zapping an unsuspecting drinker in the arse and, of course, the winner, 5) the ‘electric boogie’: suck a lime, tequila shot, lick salt off of a live paddle.

But the latest incarnation of the telephone box as a home for the village defibrillator is something else.  Especially when you consider that only people trained in the use of the defibrillator may use it.  That’s probably a good thing, the last thing you need to see is some idiot spitting on some paddles for improved connectivity and electrocuting himself.

However.  Village life is interesting.  It is easy to start an argument (I refuse to use the term feud, we’re not, as Ross Kemp remarked in ‘Ultimate Force’, Americans) in an English village.  Defibrillators are expensive kit, so presumably only accessed by trained community members, these are the people you do not want to piss off, especially if you are lardy.  So.  It’s important to keep those keymasters trained to use the defibrillator and trusted with a key to its cabinet, on side.  The last thing you need to do if you like your beer, fags and lining your arteries with cheese is to forget to return those pinking shears you borrowed off the stuck up bloke who lives in ‘the Old Rectory’ and which you secretly used to trim your toenails.

It’s right that what was once an electronically powered beating heart of the village should once again be an electronically powered beating heart restarter of the village.

As to what’s next for the village telephone box?  It’s either going to be the recharging point, take off and landing pad for the village delivery drone, or home to the village three dee printer that will print your grocery order for you using protein goo and dye.

And, of course, it’s the perfect shape to operate as the village teleport kiosk once that technology is perfected, it’s even got the dial mechanism to enter the co-ordinates.

Write on cocktails

Famously, Laurie Lee, one of the nation’s most beloved novelists, wrote ‘on wine’.  Whether or not he was ever drunk in charge of a typewriter is unclear but one has to entertain the possibility that, as a poet, he typed without due care and attention.  He did his writing in the Greek Islands, presumably because in the days before bargain booze, affordable New World wines or even Blue Nun, this was the only way he could become sufficiently inebriated to welcome the Muse should she come to visit.  Also, proximity to Mt Parnassus may have helped.

Rock stars smoke, inject, inhale and presumably occasionally insert for inspiration.  Writers drink.  Christ alone knows why, as excessive booze normally leads to feelings of alienation from the world and a profound sense of being under-appreciated and misunderstood, all of which is achievable through the simple act of publishing a slim volume of verse.  Alcohol also inhibits early morning creativity, and certain writers famously were at their creative peak at first light.  Presumably this meant they could post the latest chapter of their novel off to their publishers at eleven in the morning on their way to the pub.

However, in the spirit of enquiry G&P is embarking on a five-part special to explore the effects of various types of alcohol on writing, beyond those of not being able to remember that fantastic idea for a novel you had last night (something about a boy wizard?) just before you passed out, or not being able to decipher the notes scrawled on a beermat that could be a poem, or somebody’s e mail address.

We conclude with...cocktails!

There are two types of cocktails, divided along gender lines, like the literature that they inspire.

First, let's deal with cocktails where alcohol is mixed with soft drinks and fruit drinks to the extent that the drinker can no longer taste the alcohol.  This is quite different to the drinker no longer feeling the effects of the alcohol, unless the drinker is the sort of person who lifts up her shirt to show the room her bra after three glasses of seven up anyway.  Fruity, or 'long' cocktails were invented with the express purpose of getting ladies drunk without their confronting the reality of downing hard liquor.  If Elizabeth Bennett drank cocktails, the woman would hammer Long Island Ice Teas.  It's fruity fun in a bonnet.

Honourable exception must be made for cocktails like Cuba Libre (rum and coke if you're an American), where liquor is mixed with a soft, often sweet, sometimes fizzy, drink.  If the drink is made correctly, that is equal parts spirit and mixer, then it's not for the bonneted classes.

Likewise, certain classics are exempt from appearing on the 'girls night out' two for one laminated (for easy cleaning) cocktail list at your local cocktail lounge or Wetherspoons.  These are gin and tonic because of its medicinal properties in warding off malaria and sobriety in an increasingly torrid world, and also Bloody Mary or, as many refer to it, 'ahh, thank God, breakfast!'.  The Bloody Mary is at the extreme end of the exemption scale, not only is it a famously tasteless spirit mixed with an overpowering and sweet juice (although vegetable, not fruit, so it's practically a smoothie) and then further disguised with a fish based condiment, but served correctly it also has half a hedgerow shoved into the glass.

Cocktails with things protruding from them are an indication that this is a ladies' beverage.  Again, there are exceptions, if the glass in front of you is home to, as well as something smelling alarmingly of strawberry, either a cherry or a lit sparkler, then you had better be wearing a sparkly dress when consuming it.  If it has an olive, olives or any other form of vegetation that nobody honestly eats for pleasure, then it's a mans' drink.

Which brings us to the second sort of cocktail.  This is where one sort of spirit is mixed with another sort of spirit and served in a special sort of glass, usually a small one, for the very good reason that knocking back three trebles in thirty minutes is something that is usually only done by on-duty darts players, yet when liquor is presented thus in a dainty glass, it's socially acceptable.

Mens' cocktails taste like petrol.  Although the second one always tastes better.  This is because the idea of what Matt Groening described as a 'sophisticated adult beverage' is to remind you that you, an adult male, are having a drink.  The taste is not unlike the first drink of beer you had as a child, awful.

That's why these drinks are often served chilled, if your tongue is numb enough then you may be able to drink your first one quickly enough to make more seem like a great idea, without feeling the need to rinse your mouth out with Irn Bru and move onto something with a cherry in it.

They are also served up with dashes of things.  This is to make something that tastes toxic taste even more toxic, but in an aromatic way.  Bitters are sophistication in a bottle.

The purpose of olives is to line the stomach.

Broadly, if you are drinking a strawberry concoction, you are likely to write, and read, literature either about feisty independent women who have social and sexual misadventures but manage to land the perfect relationship and job by the last chapter, gay friend optional.  Please note though a worrying trend of such female characters meeting for coffee rather than shots to discuss the state of their love life.

If you are drinking something that tastes like aftershave made from olives, then you are likely to write and read fiction about spies, honourable criminals or knight errant charming bastards.  These men also drink coffee, but only to shift hangovers the size of Mount Olympus, when on stake outs, or when in exotic foreign locations and the coffee has the taste and consistency of tar, in a good way.

Sweeping generalisations certainly, but the cocktail is no place for subtlety.  For all that has been written about 'mixologists', sloshing together some booze like a toddler with access to a mini-bar is less the recipe for something to delight the senses and more like the precursor to a night of some poor life choices.

But it also produces fiction that, in different ways, hits the spot.

Review - The Dancing Floor

I had this review from W_.  We were both guests at a friend’s place and, Scottish weather being Scottish weather, the haggis hunting that day had been postponed due to the traditional sleet and snow that typifies Spring in the Highlands.  Seeking distraction and entertainment, I wandered to the library hoping to find at least our host’s selection of plainly bound pornography.

W sat by the fire, both were smoking.  Beside him on a small table rested an oversized decanter.  The glass was in his hand.  W was known to bring his own supplies on these trips, having once being forced to spend a weekend snowed in on the moors with only the host’s blended scotch to pass the time.

‘You’ll want the Buchan.’  He advised, gesturing to a bookcase with his foot.  ‘To your left, second shelf, yellow dust jacket.  ‘The Dancing Floor’.  That’s what you want.’

He topped up his glass and, without invitation, began.

‘The Dancing Floor may not be the greatest book ever written, but it’s the greatest adventure story I’ve ever read.

Its construction is superb.  Its author’s audacity breathtaking.  It begins with an admirably short introduction where the writer explains that this is a story he heard from a friend as they both passed the time when taking civilized refuge from an unseasonable climate.  By the end of that first paragraph, one is hooked.

The astonishing thing is that, for a novel of adventure, so very little happens for so very long.  Buchan shows exceptional nerve, and prodigious skill, in maintaining, and building, tension, moving inexorably towards the climax, where a lot happens in a very short period of time.

The premise is intriguing.  The first portion of the book deals with the storyteller’s friendship with a young friend of the family, and how this singular young man is visited by an annually recurring dream.  Surely, the reader thinks, this must be the key to the adventure and not just mystical tosh.

It’s a measure of Buchan’s confidence that the Great War is briefly explained as an wholly unexpected interlude offering adventure and excitement.  One cannot but help admire Buchan’s mastery of understatement here, as both central characters are clearly profoundly affected by their experiences at the front, most markedly in it being confirmed to them, on a grand scale, that when beastly things are in the offing, a British gentleman is justified in grabbing a pistol and the initiative and jolly well sorting things out, no matter where this might take him.

Then the book takes a most unexpected turn, the young man and his strange dream all but vanish from the narrative and we are introduced to a rare and exotic bird, a young and, naturally, beautiful woman who is far braver than any of the male characters.

Her somewhat shocking behaviour in London society is explained away by her growing up abroad and, page by page, we learn more about her background, and the terrible fate that awaits her.  She is determined to make amends for her father’s misdeeds at the family home on a remote Greek island.  The islanders however, think that this can best be achieved by torching said home, and her.

And so the book races towards its conclusion, but not before Buchan pulls off a masterstroke, changing narrative perspective at a crucial point but in such a way as to excite the reader rather than to frustrate.

This is a masterpiece.  Its depiction of London pre and post Great War is superb and Buchan’s depiction of the effect of the conflict on even the stoutest of English hearts is surprisingly compassionate in a tale of high adventure.  He is also gifted in describing the society of the time.

The Dancing Floor is a tale of high adventure, dazzlingly well written.  It is about destiny, self determination, family, friendship, conflict and Bad Blood.  It even manages to combine a dash of mysticism with what some might consider heroics, and what other will recognise as the British gentleman at his best, under pressure, with nothing but his wits and a firearm to save the day.

An astonishing tale of high adventure, astonishingly well written.

Anyway, you should read it.’

I bought my copy of ‘The Dancing Floor’ in the Brazen Head second-hand bookshop in Burnham Market, North Norfolk.  This book is the epitome of why it is simply wrong to own a Kindle.  It’s hardback, it’s got its dust jacket and it’s in fairly good condition.  I’d guess from the ‘reprinted’ history at the front that it’s the June 1938 edition.  Knowing this, it’s not too much of a stretch to think that somebody may have been reading this very book, a thrilling tale of high adventure that includes a passage on the characters adventures during World War One, whilst World War Two raged about them.

What really thrilled me though was when a bus ticket fell out of it as I read on and turned the page.  Then a few pages later, another appeared.  Two tickets, both dated July, one for 9:23, another 10:49.  A return trip…where?  To enlist?  Was some young man reading this book as he bumped to and from an appointment with destiny?

What could make this better?  Only one thing, the tickets have an advert for ‘Turners quality sausages’ and ‘Turners pork pies’ on the reverse!

Those tickets have remained there for what must be decades, and one can only speculate why.  I certainly hope that whoever originally owned the book finished it.

I do know this.  It cost me £4 and it is now the most precious volume in my possession.  The bus tickets still sit inside it, holding place.

You don’t get that with a Kindle.

And as we’re discussing war, the other thing you don’t get with a Kindle is stopping power for a bullet.  It might hold 20,000 books, but the only way a Kindle is every going to feature in a ‘I’d have been a goner if it hadn’t been for my hardback copy of ‘Reform School Girls’ I always carry in my breast pocket’ story is if they bring out the Kindle Kevlar.

Write on red

Famously, Laurie Lee, one of the nation’s most beloved novelists, wrote ‘on wine’.  Whether or not he was ever drunk in charge of a typewriter is unclear but one has to entertain the possibility that, as a poet, he typed without due care and attention.  He did his writing in the Greek Islands, presumably because in the days before bargain booze, affordable New World wines or even Blue Nun, this was the only way he could become sufficiently inebriated to welcome the Muse should she come to visit.  Also, proximity to Mt Parnassus may have helped.

Rock stars smoke, inject, inhale and presumably occasionally insert for inspiration.  Writers drink.  Christ alone knows why, as excessive booze normally leads to feelings of alienation from the world and a profound sense of being under-appreciated and misunderstood, all of which is achievable through the simple act of publishing a slim volume of verse.  Alcohol also inhibits early morning creativity, and certain writers famously were at their creative peak at first light.  Presumably this meant they could post the latest chapter of their novel off to their publishers at eleven in the morning on their way to the pub.

However, in the spirit of enquiry G&P is embarking on a five-part special to explore the effects of various types of alcohol on writing, beyond those of not being able to remember that fantastic idea for a novel you had last night (something about a boy wizard?) just before you passed out, or not being able to decipher the notes scrawled on a beermat that could be a poem, or somebody’s e mail address.

We continue with…red wine.

In doing so, it would be wrong to ignore the role that red wine has played in art.  By art, I mean proper art, a man at an easel with some oil paints, a glass of thinners, a glass of red wine and, if he’s painting a nude, a semi.  I was once told that artists drank red wine to clear their sinuses, or something.  Knowing artists (as I don’t) it was more probably to stop the voices screaming at them to paint, paint, paint the sky green.

On first inspection, the literary associations with red wine appear obvious, it’s all about the horror novel.  Not only does it look like claret, (actually it sometimes is actually claret), but red wine and other red drinks (strangely never Ribena) appear to be the alcoholic beverage of choice for those who wear rings, have lace at their cuffs and have a LOT of vampire literature on their Kindles.

Let’s make this clear right now.  You only need one vampire novel.  It’s called ‘Salem’s Lot’ and after you read it, you will never want to read any vampire fiction ever again.  Front cover blurb quotes?  I’ve got one for the publisher right here “G&P: this book will FUCK YOU UP!”.

So, moving on…

If you are a writer, you can drink red wine to achieve success in a couple of genres.

The first is horror and, as previously pointed out, it might be cliché but damn if it isn’t good fun to read a ghost story with something red at your elbow.  A bloody good horror story has a sensation of creeping dread much like the way a good red creeps up on you.  It swills and swells and surrounds the senses until you feel a bit queer.

The red is the drink of the mystery writer, the murder, the whocaresdunnet, the red is as thick and as dark as the clouds of confusion in a novel or the fog that lends atmosphere (literally) to a story.

Why would you drink red if you were writing?

Well, it mellows things, flattens them out.  Ideal if, in your first draft, you had ‘FUCK ME, THE FANGS, THE FANGS!” as the opening line and then a separate paragraph with 227 exclamation marks.

Red wine builds up to stuff (see also, fortified wine).  It’s the wine people drink three to four decisions ahead of taking a decision, a light procrastinating wine, if you will, and so ideal for mysteries.  “I’ll check out that death threat tomorrow, but first, a glass of this lovely looking wine left on my doorstep!”

It’s also the perfect winter drink (you can stick Horlicks up your arse and, in the case of a recent Horlicks-botherer, actually can).  You’re by the fire, there may be a blanket, there’s certainly an armchair. You have three uninterrupted hours ahead of you, you are of an age when you pick up a paperback rather than a smartphone, what better than a bottle of something cheeky to the point of impertinence to enhance the experience.

The other genre associated with red wine is a niche one; the military biography.  There are three obvious connotations.  The first is blood, soaking into either sand, turf, water or snow depending on your theatre.  The second is the colour of a military man’s coat, either intentionally during the Nepolionic wars where a red jacket was just the thing, or quite unintentionally in any other era when a red jacket meant that you, or somebody near you, had just encountered something sharp.  Finally, red wine is second only to the pineapple as being an essential element of any military anecdote.  ‘This bottle here, these were the damned Frenchies’, that sort of thing.

And that’s that.  There’s a book for every sort of reader and there’s a drink for every sort of writer, some writers indeed (Kinky Friedman, I’m looking at you!) enjoy several types of drink.  Laurie Lee wrote on wine and wrote brilliantly, but sometimes it’s interesting to consider that, if he had written on beer or fizz, he could have left a lasting legacy of military yarns or even romcom.

Of course, what he’s most famous for is cider.

Write on spirits

Famously, Laurie Lee, one of the nation’s most beloved novelists, wrote ‘on wine’.  Whether or not he was ever drunk in charge of a typewriter is unclear but one has to entertain the possibility that, as a poet, he typed without due care and attention.  He did his writing in the Greek Islands, presumably because in the days before bargain booze, affordable New World wines or even Blue Nun, this was the only way he could become sufficiently inebriated to welcome the Muse should she come to visit.  Also, proximity to Mt Parnassus may have helped.

Rock stars smoke, inject, inhale and presumably occasionally insert for inspiration.  Writers drink.  Christ alone knows why, as excessive booze normally leads to feelings of alienation from the world and a profound sense of being under-appreciated and misunderstood, all of which is achievable through the simple act of publishing a slim volume of verse.  Alcohol also inhibits early morning creativity, and certain writers famously were at their creative peak at first light.  Presumably this meant they could post the latest chapter of their novel off to their publishers at eleven in the morning on their way to the pub.

However, in the spirit of enquiry G&P is embarking on a five-part special to explore the effects of various types of alcohol on writing, beyond those of not being able to remember that fantastic idea for a novel you had last night (something about a boy wizard?) just before you passed out, or not being able to decipher the notes scrawled on a beermat that could be a poem, or somebody’s e mail address.

We continue with…spirits.

Shall we mention ghost stories?  Let’s not.

Shall we mention Hemmingway?  Earnest, not Wayne.  Well, there’s a school of thought that spirits make one mean, and certainly EM appeared to have it in for bulls, fish, Big Game and many of God’s creatures that had never harmed him, but are we to blame that all on spirits?  Let’s not.

Spirits are a man’s drink.  Ignore those adverts that come on at Christmas featuring a girl in a glittery frock with a tumbler of some brownish liquid.  This is a game, but ultimately doomed, attempt to extend spirits sales past the saturated male market to women.  Does that advert also have the same woman, with perfect lipstick, pulling on a thick cigar?  Thought so, the famous and famously successful advertising company of Malefantasy and Wankjet (London, New York, Pontypool) strikes again.  The only spirit women drink is vodka, and that’s only because the makers of cranberry juice really, really know how to market that stuff.

No, spirits equal men.  Spirits, ingested, throw everything into sharp relief, including emotions.  That’s why gin makes women sad and why scotch, and any other spirit, at all, makes men angry.  The drinker of spirits writes about manly stuff.  Spies, war, sports, and of course, drinking.

The spirit drinker, one feels, is above all an adventurer.

Spirits are ideal when travelling to places where you need to take the maximum amount of drinkable alcohol for the minimum encumbrance.  When the first man lands on Mars, he’ll have scotch with him (this is after Scotland gains independence and launches a hilariously ambitious, but surprising successful, space programme).  If you need to go further, faster, spirits are your friend.

The same goes with drinking them.  If you don’t have time to faff around with beer, or enjoying your drink by droning on endlessly about the complexities of the nose, as you do with wine, then reach for the hard stuff.

Because drinking spirits is not enjoyable.  If it was, mixers wouldn’t exist.

Spirits also bring, as aforementioned, and depending on the spirit in question, a certain clarity of thought.

Gin.  Instant Hogarthian and Dickensian purity, being able to describe with absolute clarity the cruddy undersole of the human condition, be it sociatial or personal.

Vodka.  Ah, vodka.  The easy association would be with Russian novels so thick they look like normal novels that have fallen into the bath.  And that’s about right.  Always, always be suspicious of any alcohol that is clear.  Rule of thumb, if it looks like you could clean spark plugs with it, avoid ingesting it.

Bourbon.  Interestingly, not actually a drink in and of itself.  Bourbon is Scotch and sweetness, like the classic cocktail of Scotch and Irn Bru.  Bourbon is one of those wonderful drinks that foreigners make.  It’s like one of those ‘fuLl engliSH breaKFasts’ that you see advertised on Greek island tavernas, with an image of the Full English that the attempt on your plate bears little resemblance to.  The genius of bourbon production is this; just as Scotch is named for a geographical area which enables the purchaser to build brand loyalty based on faux clan association, so naming your beverage after a backwoods hillbilly, Confederate general or similar will enable your customers to decide whether they are Daniels or Beam, without realising that because of the amount of sugary syrup added to the booze required to make the muck drinkable, they are all Colas.

Scotch.  The associations are largely positive.  Spies (of the right sort).  Men with the right sort of beard.  The sort of chap who has an estate in the Highlands and who vacates London during August.

In fact Scotch is the only spirit to write on, and to read on.  Picture an author with a tumbler of scotch by his (lady authors are also available) side.  Pull back.  Typewriter?  Helicopter extract?  Very possibly, and more importantly, possibly not just on the page.

Spirits, never in the form of ‘shorts’ which in any civilized society are never a measure of alcohol and only ever the apparel of adolescent schoolboys, but rather served as the more manly ‘large one’, are also the preferred drink, or ‘lunch’, as the technical term has it, of journalists.  In particular, whisky is the go-to drink of foreign correspondents.  This is because it not only helps them blot out any horrors of war they may encounter, but, back in the day when wars had not yet migrated to the dusty arsehole of the world where people didn’t drink (hence: war), whisky was currency.  Apparently during the 1970s, it was standard practice to produce at any border crossing, in this order; a litre of Johnny Walker, a carton of 200 fags, your passport, your press credentials.

Single malt may be the tipple of choice for fiction writers and for heroic explorers who publish bestselling accounts of their travels (possibly posthumously).  For the journalist though, it has to be whisky and for the epitome of the journalist, the foreign correspondent, it has to be Johnny Walker, named for the famous Radio 2 DeeJay.  Classy.

Of course, today, a foreign correspondent today is more likely to be holed up in Costa sipping latte, weaving a story out of unsubstantiated tweets and blog posts, Wiki entries and Google Earth snapshots than actual reportage.

Write on fizz

Famously, Laurie Lee, one of the nation’s most beloved novelists, wrote ‘on wine’.  Whether or not he was ever drunk in charge of a typewriter is unclear but one has to entertain the possibility that, as a poet, he typed without due care and attention.  He did his writing in the Greek Islands, presumably because in the days before bargain booze, affordable New World wines or even Blue Nun, this was the only way he could become sufficiently inebriated to welcome the Muse should she come to visit.  Also, proximity to Mt Parnassus may have helped.

Rock stars smoke, inject, inhale and presumably occasionally insert for inspiration.  Writers drink.  Christ alone knows why, as excessive booze normally leads to feelings of alienation from the world and a profound sense of being under-appreciated and misunderstood, all of which is achievable through the simple act of publishing a slim volume of verse.  Alcohol also inhibits early morning creativity, and certain writers famously were at their creative peak at first light.  Presumably this meant they could post the latest chapter of their novel off to their publishers at eleven in the morning on their way to the pub.

However, in the spirit of enquiry G&P is embarking on a five-part special to explore the effects of various types of alcohol on writing, beyond those of not being able to remember that fantastic idea for a novel you had last night (something about a boy wizard?) just before you passed out, or not being able to decipher the notes scrawled on a beermat that could be a poem, or somebody’s e mail address.

We continue with…fizz.

I am writing this drinking a glass of cold, white fizz.  Let us be clear from the start that fizz has a place in writing, both in the formulation of the art and in its enjoyment.  This is also true of other arts, whilst theatre may only be enjoyed by the judicious use of gin during the interval (I don’t make the rules) any visit to an art gallery is enhanced by wandering around with a glass of something, making sure you drink it before it gets warm.  My favourite place for doing this is the RA in their Summer Exhibition, so much so that if I picture, well, a picture, I can feel the sensation of the bobbles and sparkles from the glass alighting on my wrist.

Fizz comes in many forms, not simply that directed into the face of an unsuspecting Formula 1 podium hostess like sparking French bukake.  It has a part to play in literature certainly, one need only think of the scene in ‘John MacNab’ when the gentlemen poachers underline the serious of their task by swearing off ‘the Widow’ until the poaching is done.

But what does the writer who drinks fizz write?  Well, it may depend on the fizz in question.

Champagne probably indicates a high-end sex and shopping novel of such thickness that even if dropped in the pool on holiday, no noticeable swelling occurs.

Prosecco and Cava?  Chick lit.  Funny if it’s Prosecco, not quite so good if it’s Cava.

Finally, anything that fizzes because it’s had something done to it chemically?  Self publishers.  And yes, I do include anyone that sells their vampire novellas on Kindle.

But mainly, we’re talking romance.  Because until Rohypnol came along, no drug was so associated with seduction as fizz.  And if the perfect place to enjoy a romantic novel is indeed in the bath surrounded by scented candles with a glass of something cold and sparkling, rather than on a crowded bus with 90% organic condensation running down the windows and pigeon-shit flavoured rain thrashing down outside, then surely it must put fizz in the prose if there’s fizz in the author.

Life, for sure, goes better with bubbles, in the bath and in the glass.

It adds a touch of class too.  You are unlikely to see two women fighting after a few too many glasses of fizz.  Crying in mascara destroying style whilst assuring one another that all men are bastards yes, but hostile to a sister?  Never.  Champagne is there to celebrate the end of hostilities, not start them (unless it’s a toast at a wedding, boom boom!).

Fizz is romance in a glass.  If we overheard the object of our affections describe us to a friend as ‘the champagne of lovers’, we would simultaneously think how wonderful, sophisticated and complex we are, possibly spoiling the effect by bellowing ‘fucking get in!’ at the news.  To be described as ‘the Pernod of boyfriends’ may leave one puzzled and Googling.  The connotations are all good.  Very few moments of tragedy or heartbreak are associated with bubbles, unless the Bubbles in question is the professional name of a clown wanted by Yewtree, or the ones in your IV.

Fizz, then, is the drink of love.  We order it when we wish to impress, when we are celebrating, when there’s a free bar.

To drink fizz when writing is to have the bubbles percolate the prose, to make it light as air, so that even though the only bubbles that feature in the first paragraph of the first page are those created by the raindrops on the grey puddles on the pavement walked by Cilla Oddshaw, the plain Jane PA who is shortly to turn the life of successful-but-in-need-of-fixing Clive Bigkock around, we know that by the end of the novel, or indeed by page fifteen if Cilla makes her appetite for innovative filth clear to Clive early on, there will be champagne corks popping, and, later, a wedding.

Fizz, you see, is frolicsome fun for fillies.  Wildly sexist?  OK, picture a chick lit author.  Pull back from the head and shoulders shot.  Is she holding a pint of stout?  No, thought not.

Write on white

Famously, Laurie Lee, one of the nation’s most beloved novelists, wrote ‘on wine’.  Whether or not he was ever drunk in charge of a typewriter is unclear but one has to entertain the possibility that, as a poet, he typed without due care and attention.  He did his writing in the Greek Islands, presumably because in the days before bargain booze, affordable New World wines or even Blue Nun, this was the only way he could become sufficiently inebriated to welcome the Muse should she come to visit.  Also, proximity to Mt Parnassus may have helped.

Rock stars smoke, inject, inhale and presumably occasionally insert for inspiration.  Writers drink.  Christ alone knows why, as excessive booze normally leads to feelings of alienation from the world and a profound sense of being under-appreciated and misunderstood, all of which is achievable through the simple act of publishing a slim volume of verse.  Alcohol also inhibits early morning creativity, and certain writers famously were at their creative peak at first light.  Presumably this meant they could post the latest chapter of their novel off to their publishers at eleven in the morning on their way to the pub.

However, in the spirit of enquiry G&P is embarking on a five-part special to explore the effects of various types of alcohol on writing, beyond those of not being able to remember that fantastic idea for a novel you had last night (something about a boy wizard?) just before you passed out, or not being able to decipher the notes scrawled on a beermat that could be a poem, or somebody’s e mail address.

We being with…white wine.

White wine suits poets.  It’s bucolic.  It’s also, these days (as Stewart Lee would say) bloody strong.  Back in the day, there’s a chance that Laurie Lee was drinking something delicious, refreshing, good with fish and not terribly alcoholic.  So, a couple of glasses with lunch and then crank out a few thousand words of gorgeous literature, then a nap.  Great.  The poets of today do not have it so easy.  White wine is literary rocket fuel, in that all the action happens very quickly and in a very short space of time.  First sip, feel inspiration tingle, middle third of glass, burst of creativity, bottom third of glass, decision time.  Second glass, your day’s work is over.  The only major literary decision you are going to make for the rest of the day is trying to get the password on your Majestic account right to order another crate of the stuff.

The thing about white wine is this, it’s an event in a glass.  It should be served chilled, cold enough to disguise the fact that you are serving your guests the £3.99 special with notes of grass and petrol.  This should chill the glass, resulting in that race to the bottom before it gets warm that only The Queen is immune to (special gloves, liver like a…well, liver like a monarch rather than a weak and feeble woman).  Glasses of white wine look especially good when placed next to manual typewriters.  The portions are these:

A bottle of white wine in the afternoon – poets

A carafe of white wine – novelists

A glass of white wine – readers and people who think that they have something fresh to write about vampires.

Alcohol, of course, is famous for allowing one to overcome one’s inhibitions.  To this extent, the reveal of the true self, one wonders if Dr Jekyll’s formula was actually: gin.  But if employed by the author, white wine, very much the perky, sharp, slightly noisome friend/fiend in the bottle, can be beneficial.

It’s summer.  Bees drone, lawnmowers drone, drones, well, buzz, which is odd, because bees also buzz, and some bees are drones, but few if any bees carry cameras.

OK, I’ve had a glass of wine.  That’s the rule.  Drink while you write.  I don’t make the rules, apart from this one.

Oh, and fank thuck for spelllcheck.

Right.  It’s summer, cows moo, bees drone and the poet or novelist is in his or her shed.  It’s too hot to write, it’s too hot to think.  Cotton is sticking to buttock in a way that is more uncomfortable than alluring.  Then.  Sandwiches and a glass of white wine.

The inspiration flows.  The verse is conjured, the stanzas flow.  The plot thickens as the characters develop, maybe one of the characters has a glass of wine and a ham sandwich.  I would read that book.

Cold white wine is a shock to the system, it’s invigorating.  It opens up a world of wonder and excitement and here’s why authors really, really love it, it leaves us wanting more.

Associated with: spy novel, novels about the Napoleonic war, poetry about hedges, anything to do with sport (grass notes), anything to do with the sea (great with fish), any author who writes 250 words a day.  Literary lunches.  Literary launches.

White wine is very much a summer drink, while glorious halcyon days may be bad for creativity, who needs inspiration when you have condensation beading on the outside of the glass?  After a second glass it’s time to put away the typewriter, and Google the reviews of your last book, after a third, the real work of the afternoon, going on Amazon under an assumed name and reviewing/shitting all over the latest offering from that wanker who called your last effort ‘disappointing’.

Finally, white wine is the only drink on the planet whose character is wholly unchanged by being served in a plastic receptacle.  At a literary festival?  Don’t know what to order?  Let me tell you what’s going to be delicious, refreshing and pleasingly cool in the hand in a sweaty marquee in a summer in the Shires.  Served from a box?  Oh, OK.