William Faulkner said that a writer’s only responsibility is to his art. Mine, unfortunately, is to my dentist. Driven from my bed in the early hours of the morning by a cracked wisdom tooth (how appropriate), I’ve sought relief in the written word and the shot of morphine my manservant has kindly administered. Pain is, of course, no stranger to the…
Every morning I eat a bowl of porridge oats with sliced banana, nuts and seeds, and a dash of soy milk. Then, in a desperate bid to counter the reflux I’ve endured for the last two years, I down a glass of water and a cup of herbal tea. During this ritual, I read from a selection of diet and health books to increase my…
After health problems stopped me running for almost two years, I decided to start up again. My first forays out onto the open road (or gravel track) were tentative to say the least. All I could manage to begin with were short bursts of a few minutes, follwed by a period of walking to recover. My chest burned the whole…
At three o’clock in the morning, I had a revelation. Christopher Hitchens was wrong. It isn’t religion that poisons everything. It’s thinking. Lying awake in the blanket silence, the rest of the household sleeping, the mind tends to go into overdrive. Your entire life becomes the subject for debate, except there’s no-one around to field the questions. I’ve suffered from insomnia for short…
All writers want to be in Waterstones shop window, now, today, this minute. One small obstacle stands between us and the realisation of a lifetime’s dream. Publishers. Today’s climate is not encouraging for the budding novelist, intent on seeing his work in print. Literary agents, those much maligned creatures who practise cunning evasion techniques to avoid dealing with the slush pile,…
Two weeks without a word commited to paper. Well, I have allowed myself the luxury of this blog. Otherwise, it’s the pauper’s equivalent of lounging by the pool with a fruit cocktail and a paperback, enjoying a brief hiatus from the frontline. Alas, these soujourns are not all they’re cracked up to be. Already I’m suffering. The novel that has consumed…
Grown men don’t wade into swimming pools, wearing dressing-gowns, chasing ducks. Well, not unless they’re psychologically disturbed mob bosses searching for meaning in a dangerous world. HBO’s award-winning The Sopranos is a Masterclass in virtuoso performance, with only a hint at the outset of the drama to come. From the opening titles and the mesmeric theme tune, we’re hooked. Who can this gentle soul be? Cigar in one…
Saul Bellow wrote a book Mr Sammler’s Planet. In it was this thought-provoking passage: ‘… And this brought to mind Kierkegaard’s comical account of people travelling around the world to see rivers and mountains, new stars, birds of rare plumage, queerly deformed fishes, ridiculous breeds of men – tourists abandoning themselves to the bestial stupour which gapes at existence and thinks…
I get bored easily. I can’t do the meditational thing and sit in a chair doing nothing. My mind feeds on constant activity. I need to be doing something at all times, even if it’s only thinking about doing something. This, of course, is the disease or dis-ease of the human animal. Those of us who haven’t spent the last…
In 1969, the movie-going public were introduced to a new and controversial genre that featured hard-bitten, laconic characters in perpetual moral crisis and slow motion death sequences that looked mesmerising on the Big Screen. The Wild Bunch was an alternative view of the Old West, by the maverick Director Sam Peckinpah. Its central themes of masculinity, nihilism and exploitation are still relevant today, questioning the individual’s role…
