Day 19 and counting

Hi

The Closing Ceremony

As I write this I am thinking that the world is a good place. Ray Davies might  look a bit older, a bit greyer  but he still sounds like a Kink. As for One Direction, there was only ever one real direction for them..out the stadium. Quickly. Please.

HWMBI is getting excited looking at the drum kit set up as it looks like a big drummer, Oasis? The Who? Pink Floyd?  Oh he is so  excited. ( he's a drummer. And a musician. He had to leave the room when One Direction came on or his ears would bleed.)

Who invited Elbow? Should be something quicker to march in to ....Errol Brown and Everyone's a winner?
We are the Champions? Heroes, again but it is a good one!

My hope for the legacy of these Olympics?. I hope it kills reality TV stone dead. I hope we start to applaud people who are good at things and not because their tits are bigger than their IQ. Or they come from Essex. Or granny died while they were filming the X-factor and they wanted to own that song. Babe.

I think Pele might be putting in an appearance. No doubt young receptionist at work will ask me who that old bloke was.

Did all three interviews today, chose my favourite all time books. Black Beauty was way up there. The two works of fiction widely held to have decreased suffering in the world...Uncle Tom's Cabin and Black Beauty. Was reading that Anna Sewell probably died from Systemic Lupus,  an unknown condition then and obviously untreated. And fatal. That was what caused her mobility problems and led to her affection for her brother's horse, no  doubt the inspiration for the story.

Just had a terrible thought. Cliff Richard!

Would anybody have objected if Bradley Wiggins had sung Pinball Wizard?

Well, HWMBI was right about the drummer who he recognised immediately then asked who the wee guy with the red hair was! I think this closing ceremony is in danger of taking itself a wee bit too seriously.

Russell Brand has appeared and the dog has been sick. I don't blame it.

Latte 1, coke 0,  Anti depressant medication to get me through the closing ceremony. I have allergy issues to Jessie J. La la la la....zzzzzzz

Caro

day 20 and counting

Yet another hard day at the coal face.

But being the weekend, the email side of things was quiet, so work was at least straight forward. I am fortunate to see some national champions, world champions and some folk who are just extremely good at sport.. and that is the people I work with, never mind the patients who come in.

Interesting to hear my colleague who is  a Scottish Champion runner, represented us at the Commonwealth games was telling me about the short strides of the  400 metre runners who step up to 800, and the long stride of the 1500 metres who step down to 800 metres... and how that leads to all the argy bargy, pushing, shoving and general childlike naughty step behaviour in the middle of the bunch... usually a few metres behind the Ethiopian and the Kenyan who are at the front and keeping well out of trouble. In middle distance running these days, there is always an Ethiopian and a Kenyan at the front.

Also saw a patient who  was a three day eventer... it was the human half I was treating after the equine half had spooked and thrown her then decided to tap dance on her femur. Bruises like I have never seen apart from post surgery. It is not an unusual injury, horses are big heavy beasties with solid hooves edged in steel, but they are animals not robots. I know a horse who is brave at all  things.. and terrified of crisp packets.

Just shows you how difficult dressage and disciplines like that are - making a horse skip effectively. I can't even get the pit bull to give me a paw without a degree of negotiation. And a chewy treat.

In the evening we practicised our Mo bots while screaming at the  tele. I can understand why Usain Bolt captures the imagination, but it's the Mo Farrahs and the other distance runners that I really admire.

We were thinking, over crisps and dips and Pringles about what we would like to see at the Olympics. What I would like to hear is a commentary between  Brendan Foster, Mark Cavendish and Bert ( the South African swimmer's dad). They would never understand each other and maybe the best event for them to commentate on would be the German discus gold medal winner Robert Harting doing the hurdles without his shirt on. Seemingly he was out celebrating and got as celebrated as a newt, lost his pass and had to kip on the floor until somebody recognised him and let him.
I just wonder who had the cahonies to argue with him.

The might spreadsheet of the launch took a bit of a back seat today. Too busy watching the might Mo!  And of course Tom Daley, well done that man.
latte 2, coke 1, sensible calories 0 (only pringles!)

Caro
    

Day 21 and counting

Today was a day job day.

82 emails came in while I was at work, two needing instant answers that I did not have. And they will have to wait until Monday. And then it might be too late. But such is life when you have a patient list that is full, and emergencies have stolen the teabreaks and the lunch breaks.. and then a wee sneaky emergency sneaks in at close of play.

By eight thirty a.m.I had walked dog, been to bank, been to supermarket, answered three of the over night emails, done my notes for one interview and then turned up at work as a caffeine desperado.

There was  a wee break when a patient failed to turn up... then walked in the door  three hours late.  we explained that she was three hours late . Oh, she said, where am I supposed to be now? We couldn't help her  with that one so she had a coffee and a jammy dodger and we sorted her our later. She is a nail expert person and offered to paint crows on my nails for the launch! Watch this space.

A few patients homed in on my only copy of Blood Of Crows ( bought at the Blackwell book shop yesterday, the first time I had seen it!)  and tried to steal it, or steal a wee glance at it. Or have a wee peek at the end to see who was doing and who the fourth wee craw actually was.

The good news was the bus got booked, five more interviews came through, loads more people confirmed that they are coming.   The bad news was that writers group now have no place to meet (banned from the pub again!)  and the Brits are out the four by four relay.

I have to do my top six books ever- I asked patients what they would say. The Old Man of the Sea, The Great Gatsby, Catch 22, loads of folk said they had really tried with Gabriel Garcia Marquez but couldn't quite understand it - the Love in the Time of Cholera guy!  I couldn't understand it either.   One did mention 50 shades of mince.  But she was a hair dresser.

Another of the interviews I have to do is describe my favourite weekend.  It will not involve working, going to the supermarket etc etc.... it will involve sleep!
And then some more sleep!

Latte 2, diet coke 1, healthy calories err ... 0?

Day 22 and counting

Well it's 22 days until the launch of The Blood Of Crows. It was the first day of many, many events. It was the day Bolt did the double. It was also the first time I have set eyes on the new book. Counts today in Bridget Jones style? Latte 3, coke 0, screaming kids 5 After quiet and long dog walk accompanied by Henning Mankell (on Ipod not personally though I think Emily and Jussi might get on well), met HWMBI on train for Edinburgh. Train of hell, needed latte to get through. Waverley station is chaos, Edinburgh is Chaos, Princess gardens were warm and beautiful... but chaos. Why do kids run away from parents? Dogs come back when their name is called, so why not kids. Maybe if I was called Murray Sweetheart ( hyphenated ) and forced to wear a kilt I'd do a bloody runner too. Most ridiculous was a Samoyed being taken for draggies... in the middle of Edinburgh in the festival in searing heat. Got to gig, climbed over the copies of 50 Shades of mince at the front door of Blackwells to the proper books. There was a fine crowd to hear Hazel McHaffie talking about her book, How far would you go to Save Sebastian? It was a good talk but all I could think of were the screaming kids on the train, if one of them had been Sebastian, I wouldn't have gone very far at all. Anne Connolly then read from her beautiful new poetry collection Love-in-the-Mist and added a few funny poems ( the best sort to a philistine like me. My favourite poet is Spike Milligan!). Jennie Erdal then talked about translation and philosophy in The Missing Shade of Blue. HWMBI has all kinds of degrees in the stuff (Philosophy - not the shade of blue!) started wittering on about John Stuart Mill and David Hume on the train home, but I couldn't hear him due to very noisy Italian teenagers squawking). Ewan Morrison was supposed to be there doing a piece called Close Your Eyes and hear Tales from the Mall or indeed close your eyes and you'll miss him as it turned out. Then there was me- billed as Caro Ramsay: Gritty Glaswegian Crime fiction. It was a good event, varied. I usually feel like the poor intellectual cousin at these things, probably because crime writing is still viewed as being something inferior than 'Literature.' Just had a think, if 50 shades of mince is literature... there is no hope! Did speak a bit about The Killer Cookbook, that seemed to go down well. Sold a few books. Overall, very well received and asked to do another gig which means I didn't bore anybody to death. Emails out 15. Emails in 85. Must do better tomorrow. On way home small screaming child had on a bib that said Mr Noisey. I suppose that shows some degree of self awareness. HWMBI had a philosophical comment about self awareness but it was in Latin and it was very late and my brain switched off. Had a cup of tea watching young ladies kick each other in the head and then punch each other. That was the Olympics. Not a thursday night at Glasgow central. Caro

Crime Fest Part One

Sorry about the lack of format activity in the previous blog but we are doing something strange with the website thing and I am supposed to do something else to keep the paragraphing in. Unfortunately I view myself as a creative genius and such things are beyond me until it is explained to me in simple terms. As yet it has not. And therefore this might be OBC. (One big chunk). Just back from Crimefest in Bristol where I was moderating the international panel and doing a wee talk on forensics for crime writers i.e. how not to get caught, which is what most crime writers are interested in. I read that only two types of people are interested in that- psychopaths and crime writers. Some might argue that we are not that far apart. The forensic talk went down well – standing room only. Then I was moderating a panel for the first time. Scary stuff. I had read two novels of each of the panellists – well read six and listened to the other two – as I was running out of time. It was a treat to do as I am so busy I don’t really have time to read a book that I am not researching or reviewing. To sit and eat chocolate while reading fantastic crime fiction by folk I didn’t know was a treat indeed. And I could classify it as work and put the cost of the chocolate against tax. Really enjoyed David Jackson’s books, Pariah and The Helper, set in New York and very traditionally structured – baddie taunting the conscientious cop in a ‘catch me if you can’ type of way. At every turn the killer leaves clues for our hero. Of course, David allows the reader to think that they are one step ahead of our hero. But the writer is always three steps ahead, tantalisingly so. I think I am pretty good at spotting the way books like this are set up and I had this figured out 99.9% of the time. But it’s that last 0.1% that makes a good novel great and both these books are. Clever bloke. Clever books. The panel introduced me to the Kubu mysteries set in Botswana, slow paced and full of sunshine. Inspector Kubu is a great character who I hope gets the chance to run and run with a long series of books. I’ve not met a lot of folk who have read them but I am spreading the word and everybody falls in love with Kubu, just a little bit. I read that these books (four in the series so far I think) are considered Alexander McColl Smith for grown-ups and I think that hits the nail on the head. The fiction is comfortable, lulling the reader into a false sense of cosy and then a body appears being stripped of all its flesh by a hyena and various other bodies are floated into the river as a freshwater buffet for the crocs. It’s that strange juxta position of homely family life and sunshine with body decomposition and the darker side of the human soul. Great plotting and an interesting view on a country I confess I knew bugger all about. I was totally ignorant of the politics there, the importance of the diamond industry. I was reading it while it was snowing in Glasgow. Kubu was spending all his time trying to find shade. It had me transported in a way only a good book can do. David Hewson is, of course all over the media with his novel of the Danish TV series The Killing. I had presumed as many had that The Killing was a Danish novel that had been made into a TV series but it was always only ever a TV script. The novel was a mammoth task for David, nearly 600 pages and it was interesting to hear how he went about it. A daunting task for any writer, maybe easier for one that has a background in journalism? I can’t imagine it at all, being given a story and readymade characters and being told ‘well there you go – no changing the ending now! I have not read it yet, but it is going all holiday with me. All 600 pages – we are not flying EasyJet so are allowed a heavy book in our baggage allowance. For the panel I read one of David Nik Costa series (set in Rome) and a Lupo book (Venice). He writes very high end literary crime friction, not a lot of shooting and violence but very beautiful prose that you want to sink into. Defiantly the Bourneville Chocolate type of crime writing, rich and well textured. I know my mother-in-law type person would love these and indeed, she has already snaffled them. David writes a little like Colin Dexter without the tumble turns, no fancy footwork, just beautiful writing. I don’t think I would recommend The Seconds to the mother in law type, it would all be too much for her and she would need her medication adjusted. Quickly. The Swedish writing team of Roslund and Helstom have two books available here are the moment – or it is five - or is it three? Such are the issues of being translated out of sequence. . It is hard hitting (not ultra violent) fiction that stays with you long after you have read the book. These books will be on your mind at three in the morning and will have you wrestling with your social conscience. Not many book s can make me cry unless they hurt a puppy or squash a wombat or something (but I am perfectly happy to throw a well characterised baddie to a hungry hyena with an attitude problem). But both Cell 8 (the flavour of this book reminded me very much of the film – the life of David Gale) and Three Seconds had me weeping a little, thinking about them while out with the horror hound. Three Seconds is a book that has you reading the last paragraph again, then again.... and suddenly you get what the whole book was about. A really remarkable book. Two books that maybe can only be written by writers from a country with a well developed moral compass. These authors still work as voluntary probation officers, they still give 10% of their profits to the issues raised in the books. Rosland is a journalist, Helstrom is an ex criminal, when they speak you tend to pay attention. One of their books is going into production in Hollywood in January and I confess that the book had such a big impact on me, I might avoid the film. I’m sure those who love the book The Children of Man by P D James will know what I mean. And that leads me to my next blog where I will be talking about the Saturday of the Crimefest, the P D James events, The Killing and what Swedish crime writers do when their country wins the Eurovision Song Competition. This has indeed formatted all wrong so I have corrected it, hope it reads ok! C

Tony Black Magic

A touch of Tony Black Magic! Amongst other busy things I have been doing I went to Tony Black’s book launch in Ayr last night. Well that was the excuse to try out a restaurant that HWMBI had been to with his workmates the week before. I think the last time we went out for something to eat was last October ( the two baked potatoes for a fiver at Morrison’s doesn’t count) and even though it was the five thirty special ( two dinners for £15) it was great that somebody else was making it and there would be no fights about who was loading the dishwasher. Rumours were, the veggie food was good. And it was. The place was almost empty as we arrived, only one other couple there. So the waitress showed us to the table right next to them. Why do they do that? As I looked up the woman sitting there was somebody I know, a nice patient who just said hello. Fifty miles away and I met a patient. Much more embarrassing is when it is a bloke who says loudly ‘ahh I bet you didn’t recognise me with my clothes on’. A reference to the day job I hope. They were already on their coffee and left quickly which I hope was nothing to do with us arriving. Another woman sat down. The restaurant had its tables so close together that even the skinniest person had to squeeze in between the tables causing you to lift your pinot (£5 a glass I thank you) just in case it goes the way of the Greek economy. She was then followed by a much older man, an old Ayrshire farmer I think who was having none of this bistro cuisine. He was mischievous tyke who muttered just loud enough for others to hear that he was not going to eat this grass. “Chives” said his companion (who I deduce might have been a younger sister), He complained there was no chicken. “It’s under the pastry” she said with the patience of a saint. “That’s not a chicken” he said. “Been a fermer for fifty year an’ I’ve never seen a chicken like that”. “Eat it anyway and be quiet”. “I asked for a beer.” “That is a beer.” “No in that glass it’s no.” And so it went on. He even asked the waitress how they got away with charging five quid for a ‘dod o bried’ and a ‘wee bit of vinegar’. Better off at the chippy was the clear inference. There was then an interesting exchange when the sister asked him “Did you let the dogs out”? “A’hm no dignifying that with an answer”. “Yes but did you let all the dogs out?” With the emphasis on the all. In my mind I was replaying that Specsaver add with the collie that gets an unfortunate hair cut. Tony was in fine form as usual, the wee Waterstones in Ayr is a good venue but he did need to be mic’d up to be heard over the buzz of the refrigeration unit. He was interviewed by Michael Malloy, renowned poet of the West Coast. But at least he had a mic. At Paisley library, three of my ‘fans’ decided they needed to have their ears waxed when they didn’t. It was just such a big venue that nobody at the back could hear me. Not read Murder Mile yet, HWMBI’s mum has it. She tends to knick the good stuff on the reading pile and the harder boiled the crime fiction the better, as it often is with these little old ladies who wear cashmere a lot. Tony appeared and was given flowers by a male fan and this male fan should get a job as Tony’s PR guy as he asked every question with lashings of marvellousness. Wish he would come to my launch but I think I’d miss the dogs abuse that I get from my own fans. There was much chat about kindle stuff and how it is affecting publishing. What people seem to forget is that people will soon get fed up with paying anything for a novel that has not been properly edited. All novel writing is a team sport, you need fresh eyes at some point. Amazon might be happy to get 1% of 500 books costing £!0. They will be equally happy to get 1% of one million e-books selling at a pound each. The reader doesn’t know until they buy it. There are people out there writing books and putting the first draft out for sale because they think that is how it works. The buying public are not that daft ... Sales of e-books in Japan are already starting to streamline into the normal ways of publishing. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I do not know. But any badly written book, or non-edited book, even the best of them, needs an editor! It’s a bad thing. Next week Uddingston and then the world. Next time the blog is about Alex Grey and I in the NCP car park in Dundee. Enough said.

the corduroy underpants

Just got back from a wee party in London for those of us on the Penguin crime list to have a chat with some reviewers, bloggers, twitters (?) and mess about with some indiscriminate others.
One interesting character lived on a house boat on the Thames but was from Clydebank… and he and I turned out to be the informal cabaret for the evening. Our task was to find the most difficult sentence for an English person to say in a Glaswegian accent. The answer is … ‘Oh there’s been a murder in my corduroy underpants!’ The word curly wurly also provoked a fair degree of hysteria amongst those who pronounce the word grass with more than one A in the middle.
I met old pals like Tim Weaver, Mad Chris, Slightly More Sane Chris and totally Absolutely Barking Chris ( he had claimed he had another event to go to but ended up having so much fun with our corduroy underpants that he decided to hang around.) The lovely Barry Forshaw was there. If you watch a lot of TV you have probably seen him on things like the A to Z Of Crime Fiction speaking words of wisdom. It turns out that we are interviewing the same authors at different crime festivals over the summer so he is going to give me the heads up re good questions or not! And what to avoid. Nicki French was also there. I had walked past her/ them at various venues and said hello but had never been formally introduced. She was a really nice person, funny and witty. Totally understanding that to me, with my sense of geography (north being up and south is down!), Suffolk was somewhere ‘over there’ while vaguely pointing with a glass... in the middle of Soho, Suffolk must have been somewhere to the left. I did gain some respect by knowing much about the famous horses of Suffolk.
I did my training in London and lived right in the centre for five years. I don’t know if I am older or if London has changed, but it seems so much dirtier now, bins and rubbish everywhere, the homeless everywhere. There is still the interchangeable Glaswegian, dark brown skin with nicotine, raddled face singing somewhere near a tube station entrance. This time he was outside the embankment staggering up the middle of the road, singing Amazing Grace. He was holding the tune better than any X Factor contestant and a nifty dance while negotiating the kerb. If he was cleaned up a bit he could represent an independent Scotland in Eurovision.
He’d probably do quite well...
I’m saying nothing about Englebert. I know the age of retirement is going up but what next? Sean returning as James Bond. Joan Collins in Miss World? Brucie on yet another series of Strictly.
Small people were in the house last week – watching TV and asking who this old geyser was. Tom Jones I replied. And who’s that they asked.
Nearly as good as somebody at work asking me how many Beatles there actually was.
The catalogue is out for the next book The Blood Of Crows and it is available for pre-order on Amazon. The book after that is going well. Working title is The Night Hunter.
Off for a busy time with events next week.
More soon.