Categories
writing

The Illustrated Ape is here!

(photos a bit rubbishy cos I took them with my BlackBerry, but you get the idea; latest issue is North vs South. They put my story in with the Southerners! Me? A soft southerner? Eeee…)

Christian Pattison and I go way back to our first day at St Catz, when I was 18. I think I may even have met Christian before I met my husband, which happened on day 3.

He hasn’t changed much; still madly enthusiastic for art and culture in all its forms, still has the looks of a Panzer Fuhrer or a Nordic god, and the build of a muscle-bound, black-belt martial arts dude…which he actually is. By day he takes care of a severely disabled man, by night (and on his days off) he writes his novel on his iPaq and edits and co-runs The Illustrated Ape, one of the world’s leading fringe arts/literary magazine.

(website still under construction as I write, a big Ape party planned for when it launches)
Christian may not know it, but he had a big influence in inspiring me to write. He was in the Very Cool Arty Crowd at college, which you had to be studying English to be in, more or less. As a (northern) biochemist, I should have been beyond the pale but Christian always talked to me about art and literature as though I might actually have a clue (I didn’t and still don’t but he’s nice enough to act as though I do). He carried on talking to me years after we left college, both still living in Oxford. When he and a friend started Ape years ago, we bumped into each other and Christian enthused about getting me to write some graphic novel-style Blake’s 7 stories for Ape (which I did until the copyright holders had a stuff word after 3 issues…)
Anyway, I’m a big fan of Christian’s, can’t wait to read his finished novel and I hope he finds a publisher, and I hope The Illustrated Ape goes from strength to strength. It’s sold in over 150 outlets, and in 30 countries.

I’ve a short story published in the latest version. My first short story published under my own name! It’s illustrated by two guys from the Black Convoy urban graffiti guys. (Black Convoy are a a UK based multi-disciplined art/design collective.) The image at the top is from their brilliantly funky work on my story.
Buy The Illustrated Ape! It’s way, way cool.
P.S .At breakfast today Christian told me that he met Joseph Heller when Heller spent some time at St Catz, before he died. Heller told Christian that he never wrote more than 300 words a day. I’ve been trying to match Graham Greene’s manageable 500-words daily target. Now I feel like an overachiever. A smug one, at that.
Categories
raves

Big Brother Is Back

For the love of God, let me not be tempted by Big Brother this year. It’s wicked and venial and I know I shouldn’t participate. It’s bad for me and wastes hours of my time.

I’d love to join those smug people who don’t watch it and go around being very lofty about their non-participation.

Arggghhhh…but I’d rather not…I wanna be one of the people who are having fun, especially on eviction night!

It’s not easy being a Catholic and a hedonist. More or less constant temptation! I must ask my brother-in-law for advice – he’s really good on loopholes in canon law.

Categories
raves travel

When You Just Have To Go To Bali

On the phone today to my brother-in-law in Perth, Western Australia, I found myself once again being drawn into one of his hedonistic schemes.

It’s my family’s turn to make the trip across the planet so that we can all spend some quality time together. But Paul has a better idea. It seems that there’s been a distinct shortfall in his family’s experience of sumptuous luxury this year. They’ve been slumming it in their suburban house in Perth, where they don’t even have a swimming pool, poor things, watching goanas try to find cover in what used to be a wild back yard, as builders put up the cheapest possible (I’m assured) extension known to Western Australia. My sister has had to do all the decorating, whilst Paul is kept busy by his nascent biotech firm.

There’s been a serious lack of pampering, of decadence, of perfumed air, gentle gamelan music and serenading musicians as you eat lightly steamed fish with flavours like lemongrass, saffron and mango. There’s been a shortage of surfing in conditions that Paul explained to me (in detail) were nigh on perfect between March and December.

“You want us to meet you in Bali,” I guessed.

“The Hilton,” he said, “wasn’t quite luxurious enough last time.”

Last time, I remember arriving at what looked like a modern-day temple of extravagance, being met from the airport limo by gorgeous young women in sarongs who placed frangipani flowers in our hands and gave us warm, lemon-scented towels to soothe our fevered brows as we endured the hotel’s checking-in process, pressing chilled glasses with tropical fruit mocktails into our weary hands.

Paul continued, “Since then, it’s been taken over by someone else and they’ve turned the decadence up a few notches.”

“I don’t think we can quite run to the Hilton,” I said. “The Melia?”

Paul checked with my sister. The answer was no. They’d been to the Melia. It’s not up to the job. But if we choose to slum it, they’ll be down the beach at Nusa Dua, where we can visit them. In a proper hotel.

Categories
mexico

Cup Final Day…and I Have Writer’s Block

Oh I am in such big trouble. Meant to be going to Brighton today for a wedding. (Yes! I won’t be able to watch the FA Cup Final…gaaaahhhhh!) So I’m trying to hit my 500 word daily target on Jaguar but can I write? NO!

I’m stuck in some loop of memory, thinking about my aunty who died recently, and the university where she used to work, and how from the first moment I saw St Catherine’s College, Oxford, where I did my undergrad degree, it brought back powerful memories of a place which had meant so much to my family, before it was destroyed by an earthquake.

Compare and contrast…

St Catz (top) vs the late, lamented, earthquake-clobbered Universidad Iberoamericana (bottom).

…and…that’s it! Out of time, have to go. Come on you Reds.
Categories
nostalgia raves

My Mate Noam

There’s a guy on my street who has two boys. We’ve all been friends for years and we’ve watched his boys grow up, he’s watched our girls grow up – even saw our youngest the day she was born. We’re all fans of Man United so we got together for all those big games in 1999, when we won the treble. As one, we lept into the air like crazed loons when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored the winning goal against Bayern Munich.

The oldest boy’s name is Noam, because his parents are friends and admirers of Chomsky. (So we can’t hold that against Noam…)

Noam and I chatted today on MSN – he’s in Edinburgh studying biomedical sciences right now. Like many guys his age he doesn’t stay in this country for long – it’s one long world-wide trip punctuated by the odd few weeks taking classes in Uni. He showed me his Youtube page, which has two of the most innovative videos I’ve seen.

Check this one out. It’s a video-meta-email! He calls it a facetube.
I love it – so clever, it works on several levels. (Goes long though – Noam, cut the end!)

This next one crack whore made me roar with laughter.
It plays with the notion of bilinguality. If you don’t speak Spanish, all you need to know is that the conversation between Noam, his Mum and his gran is actually about the gran being cross that Mum has put Gran up in her own bed. Not about being a crack whore at all. If you speak Spanish you’ll get the joke even more.

I’ve known Noam since he was about 11. Watching children you know well grow up really IS wonderful. A great comfort to those of us this far along the aging process…