No, seriously, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my blog-readers. Have a great one.
I've managed to catch the bloody flu, so it won't be much of a Christmas at this end. Still, I'll survive. But really, December 2010 has to count as one of the crappiest months I've had in a long time. Ah well.
Peace, love and all of that, peeps. Have a good one.
Friday, 24 December 2010
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Thursday, 16 December 2010
'Remember' by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)
REMEMBER me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
-Thank you to my friend Roberta Lannes for sending me this poem.
Sunday, 12 December 2010
Dorothy Ann Smith, 1915-2010
On Thursday night I got home from work. I work late, so it was after 9.00 pm. I had dinner, faffed around on the internet for a while, as you do. Remembered I owed my neighbour for the housework (I'm rubbish at it and never have time, so for £20 a fortnight she stops the place turning into a slum), so went to the bank, paid her, chatted for a while, went home. It's now 10.30 pm. and I remembered I hadn't checked the answering machine on my landline. There's a message from my Mum asking me to call. I did. I don't normally call my parents that late at night, but this time I did. Not sure why. Maybe it was because my Welsh grandmother had gone into hospital earlier in the week after a fall.
Anyway, I spoke to my Dad. "I've got some sad news, love," he said.
This is what I wrote on my Facebook profile later that night:
‘Simon Bestwick’s beloved grandmother, Dorothy Ann Smith, died peacefully in her sleep this afternoon. I have had to wait for a minute after typing that last sentence, because typing it is the most painful thing I’ve done in a very long time. She was a brave, funny, strong, determined and lovely woman who was widowed in the Second World War and then again a few years later, and who raised my father and his stepbrother on her own.
I loved her dearly, and am devastated to know she isn't there any more. She was 95 years old, and had had a good innings. But right now, that doesn't seem to help. Rest in peace, Nanw.'
(Nanw is Welsh for 'Mum', basically. We always called her that because that was what Dad called her.)
Why was I posting on Facebook? Part of this whole 'wear your heart on your sleeve, wash your laundry in public' culture that we've got nowadays? Hardly. Simple fact was, by the time I thought of actually speaking to anyone, it was half-eleven. My neighbour's lights were off, as were those of another friend across the road (who would later tell me off for not getting him out of bed under the circumstances. ) I rang one of the few friends I know who'd be a) up at that hour and b) wouldn't consider it an imposition. Got his answerphone, left a message. I've got at least one other friend I'd consider calling at that time, but she's just had a baby...
So I was alone in the house, and basically climbing the walls between crying jags. And if you're tut-tutting because you don't think that's manly, or something, then fuck off.
But that's not what this is about.
This blog is about two things really. One, to thank the people who helped me get through that night and the days since. All the people who posted on Facebook or messaged me privately- thank you. A small kindness can mean a great deal at times like that. Thanks to Joel, who rang me at one in the morning, and to Vicky, who rang at two in the morning. Just- thanks, really.
And the other? Because she was my grandmother, and I loved her dearly. We were close, and she was a great lady. She had her faults, of course- in her later years she could be grumpy, and she was always stubborn as a mule. But she was funny, and kind, and full of good stories. And she deserves to be remembered. And because, as Harlan Ellison once put it, 'no-one should be sent down in the dark with too few words.'
Anyway, I spoke to my Dad. "I've got some sad news, love," he said.
This is what I wrote on my Facebook profile later that night:
‘Simon Bestwick’s beloved grandmother, Dorothy Ann Smith, died peacefully in her sleep this afternoon. I have had to wait for a minute after typing that last sentence, because typing it is the most painful thing I’ve done in a very long time. She was a brave, funny, strong, determined and lovely woman who was widowed in the Second World War and then again a few years later, and who raised my father and his stepbrother on her own.
I loved her dearly, and am devastated to know she isn't there any more. She was 95 years old, and had had a good innings. But right now, that doesn't seem to help. Rest in peace, Nanw.'
(Nanw is Welsh for 'Mum', basically. We always called her that because that was what Dad called her.)
Why was I posting on Facebook? Part of this whole 'wear your heart on your sleeve, wash your laundry in public' culture that we've got nowadays? Hardly. Simple fact was, by the time I thought of actually speaking to anyone, it was half-eleven. My neighbour's lights were off, as were those of another friend across the road (who would later tell me off for not getting him out of bed under the circumstances. ) I rang one of the few friends I know who'd be a) up at that hour and b) wouldn't consider it an imposition. Got his answerphone, left a message. I've got at least one other friend I'd consider calling at that time, but she's just had a baby...
So I was alone in the house, and basically climbing the walls between crying jags. And if you're tut-tutting because you don't think that's manly, or something, then fuck off.
But that's not what this is about.
This blog is about two things really. One, to thank the people who helped me get through that night and the days since. All the people who posted on Facebook or messaged me privately- thank you. A small kindness can mean a great deal at times like that. Thanks to Joel, who rang me at one in the morning, and to Vicky, who rang at two in the morning. Just- thanks, really.
And the other? Because she was my grandmother, and I loved her dearly. We were close, and she was a great lady. She had her faults, of course- in her later years she could be grumpy, and she was always stubborn as a mule. But she was funny, and kind, and full of good stories. And she deserves to be remembered. And because, as Harlan Ellison once put it, 'no-one should be sent down in the dark with too few words.'
Monday, 6 December 2010
Priceless
TV licence: a hundred and something quid a year.
TV: Easily obtainable from a charity shop.
Radio: Even easier and cheaper to obtain.
Hearing the Culture Secretary called 'Jeremy C*nt' on national radio to a breakfast audience of millions: Priceless.
There are some things money can't buy. For everything else, there's the BBC.
Sunday, 28 November 2010
Strange Men In Pinstripe Suits by Cate Gardner
Figured it was long overdue for me to talk about something other than myself again, so here goes:
Point of interest- I've been familiar with the ever-reigning Cate's (TM) work for a good thirteen years now, and have not only spoken to her a couple of times on the phone but actually got to meet her recently. Back in the late '90s both Cate and her fiction had a bit of a Gothy thing going on, but in 2010 that's a thing of the past. These days the scariest thing about Cate Gardner is that she doesn't look scary, or strange. She just looks... nice. And- dare I say it?- normal. You could pass her in a crowd and never guess who just walked by.
Thankfully, though, Cate is not normal. I say 'thankfully' because... well, have you seen what counts as 'normal' behaviour these days? Watching X-Factor? Regarding Simon Cowell as a personage of importance, rather than an emissary of the Antichrist? Giving a toss what Cheryl Cole thinks about... er... anything?
Nope, Cate's no more normal than I am, and thank goodness for that. Quite understandably, she spends as little time as possible in a world where that kind of behaviour is considered acceptable or even (god help us) mandatory. Wherever possible, she resides in Cate-land. Now, I have no more idea than you do where exactly Cate-land is, but I can hazard a guess at what it's like. It's a world where robots are lovesick (or wage war with fairies in a greenhouse.) It's a world where you have (and may well need) zombie decapitation insurance. A world where serial killers relax on the bed of the local canal between victims, and breakfast on a bucket of crabs.
It's also a world, funnily enough, with rather a lot of strange men. In pinstripe suits.
But you probably guessed that.
How can I describe Cate Gardner's work? Well, the short answer is that I can't. She isn't really quite like anyone else. Her stories often have the feel of strange, dark little fairy-tales. Perhaps there's a little touch of Angela Carter there, then? Hm... not exactly. There's a quirky, inky-dark humour that darts through her tales that isn't quite like anything Carter ever did- I defy any reader to finish The Sulphurous Clouds of Lucifer Matches, for example, without a ripe, rich chuckle- and a deceptive easygoing lightness of touch that recalls Rob Shearman (which I can assure you is high praise indeed as far as I'm concerned.)
But quirky, humourous, even whimsical though the stories can be, they're not all light. The endings of Parasol Dance With The Chalkstripe Man and Other Side Of Nowhere are anything but twee; they're fiercely bleak. Burying Sam, a clever and typically Cate-ish- by which I mean idiosyncratic and not quite like anyone else- take on the zombie theme, grows more poignant with each reading. And it's only a page and a half long. But then again, the opening story, Dandelion Fluff, isn't even half a page in length, and yet it's another piece that packs a sting; one, again, that deepens with successive encounters.
Now there's one of the notable characteristics of Cate's fiction; brevity. The longest of the 24 stories in this book is about 14 pages long. There are others of 10, 11, 12 pages, but most are far shorter. Black Heart Balloon is 3 pages; Opheliac a mere 4. Both are little wonders of dark wit and bizarre invention that pull you through the looking glass into a darker world than anything Lewis Carroll envisaged.
Another defining feature is a child's-eye view of the world, but one that never escapes into naivety or refuses to grow up. A quality, perhaps, of innocence. The protagonists of The Graveyard Of Dead Vehicles and The Sulphurous Clouds Of Lucifer Matches (did I mention she's great with titles too?) negotiate hostile worlds with difficulty, seeking ways to emerge with their integrity intact. In the first, the protagonist needs to recapture a childlike belief in magic and reject the nullifying logic of a nightmarishly prosaic world; in the second, the protagonist is a child who uses guile and wit to win through, in the best traditions of fairy stories everywhere.
That quality of innocence is fundamental to Cate's work. If there's an overriding theme to Strange Men In Pinstripe Suits then it's the struggle to preserve it in a grim, inimical world. It's a struggle to do so; it would be so easy to let that quality be extinguished for the sake of an easy ride, a quiet life. But do so, and you're lost forever.
Perhaps these stories come, simply, from a fundamentally gentle soul, dramatising its own struggle to preserve itself. Perhaps they're intended as survival guides or the rest of us. Or perhaps they're just a collection of- literally- wonderful short stories that are like nothing else you're likely to have read this year. Whatever the truth of the matter, we have Cate Gardner and Aaron Polson of (aptly) Strange Publications to thank for giving these funny, touching and magical tales what they deserve- a home more permanent and enduring than the various magazines and websites they have graced.
For, as Cate Gardner knows so well, some things are more than worth the struggle to preserve.
In case you hadn't got the message already, I loved this book. Get yourself a copy. In fact, with Christmas coming up, it might be worth ordering a few.
Point of interest- I've been familiar with the ever-reigning Cate's (TM) work for a good thirteen years now, and have not only spoken to her a couple of times on the phone but actually got to meet her recently. Back in the late '90s both Cate and her fiction had a bit of a Gothy thing going on, but in 2010 that's a thing of the past. These days the scariest thing about Cate Gardner is that she doesn't look scary, or strange. She just looks... nice. And- dare I say it?- normal. You could pass her in a crowd and never guess who just walked by.
Thankfully, though, Cate is not normal. I say 'thankfully' because... well, have you seen what counts as 'normal' behaviour these days? Watching X-Factor? Regarding Simon Cowell as a personage of importance, rather than an emissary of the Antichrist? Giving a toss what Cheryl Cole thinks about... er... anything?
Nope, Cate's no more normal than I am, and thank goodness for that. Quite understandably, she spends as little time as possible in a world where that kind of behaviour is considered acceptable or even (god help us) mandatory. Wherever possible, she resides in Cate-land. Now, I have no more idea than you do where exactly Cate-land is, but I can hazard a guess at what it's like. It's a world where robots are lovesick (or wage war with fairies in a greenhouse.) It's a world where you have (and may well need) zombie decapitation insurance. A world where serial killers relax on the bed of the local canal between victims, and breakfast on a bucket of crabs.
It's also a world, funnily enough, with rather a lot of strange men. In pinstripe suits.
But you probably guessed that.
How can I describe Cate Gardner's work? Well, the short answer is that I can't. She isn't really quite like anyone else. Her stories often have the feel of strange, dark little fairy-tales. Perhaps there's a little touch of Angela Carter there, then? Hm... not exactly. There's a quirky, inky-dark humour that darts through her tales that isn't quite like anything Carter ever did- I defy any reader to finish The Sulphurous Clouds of Lucifer Matches, for example, without a ripe, rich chuckle- and a deceptive easygoing lightness of touch that recalls Rob Shearman (which I can assure you is high praise indeed as far as I'm concerned.)
But quirky, humourous, even whimsical though the stories can be, they're not all light. The endings of Parasol Dance With The Chalkstripe Man and Other Side Of Nowhere are anything but twee; they're fiercely bleak. Burying Sam, a clever and typically Cate-ish- by which I mean idiosyncratic and not quite like anyone else- take on the zombie theme, grows more poignant with each reading. And it's only a page and a half long. But then again, the opening story, Dandelion Fluff, isn't even half a page in length, and yet it's another piece that packs a sting; one, again, that deepens with successive encounters.
Now there's one of the notable characteristics of Cate's fiction; brevity. The longest of the 24 stories in this book is about 14 pages long. There are others of 10, 11, 12 pages, but most are far shorter. Black Heart Balloon is 3 pages; Opheliac a mere 4. Both are little wonders of dark wit and bizarre invention that pull you through the looking glass into a darker world than anything Lewis Carroll envisaged.
Another defining feature is a child's-eye view of the world, but one that never escapes into naivety or refuses to grow up. A quality, perhaps, of innocence. The protagonists of The Graveyard Of Dead Vehicles and The Sulphurous Clouds Of Lucifer Matches (did I mention she's great with titles too?) negotiate hostile worlds with difficulty, seeking ways to emerge with their integrity intact. In the first, the protagonist needs to recapture a childlike belief in magic and reject the nullifying logic of a nightmarishly prosaic world; in the second, the protagonist is a child who uses guile and wit to win through, in the best traditions of fairy stories everywhere.
That quality of innocence is fundamental to Cate's work. If there's an overriding theme to Strange Men In Pinstripe Suits then it's the struggle to preserve it in a grim, inimical world. It's a struggle to do so; it would be so easy to let that quality be extinguished for the sake of an easy ride, a quiet life. But do so, and you're lost forever.
Perhaps these stories come, simply, from a fundamentally gentle soul, dramatising its own struggle to preserve itself. Perhaps they're intended as survival guides or the rest of us. Or perhaps they're just a collection of- literally- wonderful short stories that are like nothing else you're likely to have read this year. Whatever the truth of the matter, we have Cate Gardner and Aaron Polson of (aptly) Strange Publications to thank for giving these funny, touching and magical tales what they deserve- a home more permanent and enduring than the various magazines and websites they have graced.
For, as Cate Gardner knows so well, some things are more than worth the struggle to preserve.
In case you hadn't got the message already, I loved this book. Get yourself a copy. In fact, with Christmas coming up, it might be worth ordering a few.
Monday, 22 November 2010
Woot and Squee!
Just had a bit of nice news, which is always good on a Monday morning and better still following a six-day week: my short story 'Salvaje' is to be published in a forthcoming edition of Charles Black's The Black Book Of Horror series. (Edited for update: just heard this morning that it will appear in the Ninth Black Book of Horror. Woot, squee and happy dance!)
The Black Books hark back to the good old days of the Pan Books of horror- in the best sense. The stories tend to the more gruesome end of the horror, but they're usually worth reading. 'Salvaje' features a character I hope to write about again, but I'm saying no more than that. It's a story I'm fond of, so it's good to see it find a home at last.
Damn, I went and squeed again. I really must stop that.
The Black Books hark back to the good old days of the Pan Books of horror- in the best sense. The stories tend to the more gruesome end of the horror, but they're usually worth reading. 'Salvaje' features a character I hope to write about again, but I'm saying no more than that. It's a story I'm fond of, so it's good to see it find a home at last.
Damn, I went and squeed again. I really must stop that.
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