Sunday, November 19, 2006

FIRST TIME EFFECT

This month's theme in the excellent online literary magazine qarrtsiluni is: The First Time , which spurred me to dig further back into my memory. I came up with "The Effect" - another chapter for the autobiography, I suppose, but one I hadn't thought of writing down before. Knowing that your stuff will be read by someone somewhere certainly acts as a stimulus - why not send them your own experience of a first anything in your life?

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Wednesday, November 08, 2006


THERE'LL BE CHAMPAGNE CLINKING IN AMERICA TONIGHT

NOT THE SOUND OF MUSIC

If you've missed me, and I hope so, you can actually hear me, being interviewed over transatlantic phone tonight by Chris Rittke of 49sparks.

I didn't realise that I say "you know" quite so often or that I've got a frog up my nose and sound like an especially irksome adolescent but I was aware of my habit of butting in before the person I'm talking with has finished their sentence. Ay ay ay! Sorry, Chris, and thanks for being polite and not telling me off. My excuse is that in my family everybody talked all at once and everyone had strong views and you didn't stand a chance of being heard unless you interrupted.

This interview came about because the talented Lucy Pepper (formerly known as Vitriolica, currently wowing audiences at Blogzira ) was recently interviewed at 49sparks (listen to her lilting English voice there). She it was who told Chris how wondrous Augustine and I are and so it came to pass.

Now you have been warned, go and listen but don't hold it against me. When that BBC programme comes out (due on November 28 but they'll let me know ahead of time and you can bet I'm not going to let anyone forget it) I hope I'm not going to come across as so ...er... bolshy. I don't know if that's the right term. Ay ay ay.

This week - yes this week - I'm going to post another episode of the autobiography. Stick around.