“Hamster” and the Geordie accent
No – obviously, hamsters don’t have a Geordie accent. It just made a good headline. But seeing as Time Traveling With A Hamster (note the absent extra “L”) was released in the US last week, I thought it would be helpful for the American readers to get an idea of how they speak in the […]
Book number 2: thank God for that!
I’ll be honest – there were times when I thought, fleetingly, that perhaps I was destined to write only one book. That Time Travelling With A Hamster would have its brief moment in the limelight and then gracefully move along the bookshelf to make room for books by other, more prolific and successful authors. I would tell myself […]
The Encounter: time-travelling magic
I’ve written before about my, shall we say, complicated relationship with the theatre. I take the approach once described by Sir Michael Parkinson: “I have never sat in a theatre without wishing I were in a cinema instead.” Except…sometimes. This was one of the sometimes. Tempted by a friend who promised that it would appeal […]
“Let’s talk about adverbs,” he said, swiftly
A couple of posts ago, I mentioned Stephen King’s splendid book On Writing, and referenced his personal ban – which I think he’d like extended – on adverbs. “The adverb is not your friend” he said, adding, “the road to hell is paved with adverbs and I will shout it from the rooftops.” Loudly, no doubt. […]
A gem on every page
Fifteen years ago I was holiday with my then-girlfriend (now wife) in Zahara de los Atunes in southern Spain. Three things are especially memorable. Mrs W told me she was pregnant; Islamist psychos flew aeroplanes into the Twin Towers in New York (the horror of which we watched unfold on a television in a village bar); […]
The glorious myth of the “book launch”
Well, it’s out. Officially. My book, that is. (Time Travelling With a Hamster.) I know that because I have had a “launch party”, which – it appears – is something that everyone (myself included) assumes happens for every book that is published, more or less. And which, in actual fact, almost never happens unless: The author […]
What do you mean, you haven’t watched it?
Game Of Thrones, I mean. It’s awesome, and anyone who hasn’t watched it is missing out big time. I know: you’ll be late to the party, but the advantage of that is that you’ll be able to binge-watch them all on a box-set. To be honest, I think watching it in weekly episodes would be […]
My book’s in the shops!
…well, one shop anyway. The official publication date of “Time Travelling With A Hamster” is December 31, but at least one shop – thank you Waterstone’s, Kensington High Street – have received a bunch of them already and decided to put them out in the store, sandwiched – handily – between two David Walliams books. […]
Geordie Haka
Apologies if I am late to the party and you’ve already seen this… There are some great Geordie expressions included in it, my personal favourite being “geet fat knacka” which my brother and I used to call each other. (Who am I kidding with the “used to”?) Incidentally, for some reason this inserted video has […]
Magical and fabulous: There Will Be Lies by Nick Lake
God, I hate so-called “magic realism”. In books, at any rate. I don’t get along with Gabriel Garcia Marques, or Isabel Allende, or any of that lot. (For some reason, I don’t mind it in films. I’m thinking of The Green Mile, which I like a lot, but there are plenty of others. I’m not sure why […]
