Why Leslie Plays Soccer on the Sidewalk

I was asked about this in a comment on an earlier blog so this should be considered a slightly overblown off the cuff answer - I haven't done any research or read deeply on the subject so all the opinions are mine and some of the facts may be wrong(1).

Roughly the question was - in the US version of the books why is Leslie called Leslie (as opposed to Lesley in the UK editions) and why does she suddenly revert. The answer is simple - cultural dominance and fear.

Cultural Dominance

America is currently the culturally dominant nation in the world(2). This is particularly true vis a vis other English speaking nations where domination of the local culture is unmediated by a language barrier. Members of a dominant culture tend to be more resistant to having to familiarise themselves with other cultures including variant spellings and terminology. OK it's not everyone obviously or even a majority but it is enough to have an impact on sales.

Fear

So when an American publisher takes up a book by an unknown(3) author set in author's native town and written in the first person in the locality's colourful local vernacular they have a choice - leave the as is and risk alienating a financially significant percentage of the audience or make few harmless changes to smooth things along. It is, as they say, a no brainer.

Lesley vs Leslie

That explains sidewalk, soccer, bangs, chips and hoods - what about Leslie? I originally wrote Lesley's name as Leslie but my UK publisher said that the female version of the name was more usually spelt Lesley - so we changed it. Remember both publishers now have their own copies of the manuscript - they have diverged. My US publisher was quite happy with Leslie and so stuck with that.

However I now consistently spelt Lesley as Lesley in my manuscripts that now went to both publishers. In Moon Over Soho Del Rey, the US publisher, opted to change Lesley to Leslie to remain consistent. By Whispers Under Ground Del Rey, by now disappointed with the sales figures(4), probably couldn't be bothered - its hard to tell from this side of the pond. Anyway DAW took over for the next book Broken Homes and their policy is to just change variant spellings colour to color, herb to erb(5) um...look I can't spell in English English so I'm really not the one to ask about this. So Lesley stays Lesley from now on.

And now a Quick Word to them what don't like Peter saying 'Me and....'

Vernacular
Noun:
The language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people of a country or region:

Adjective:
(Of speech or written works) using the mother tongue of a country or region: vernacular literature

(1) Pretty much internet standard then.

(2) Enjoy it while it lasts guys.

(3) Yeah, yeah, Doctor Who yada yada - effectively unknown in the US.

(4) I currently sell 10 times as many copies in Germany (in German) than I do in the US. Hah! So much for the homogenous Science Fiction anglosphere.

(5) Yes I know - this is me being funny (or possibly not).

Repeatable Moments of Acute Embarressment Number 1

In which John Cleese and I do an Involuntary Recreation of the Classic Cheese Shop Sketch in the Covent Garden Branch of Waterstones

I was recently criticised for a failure to be emotionally forthcoming in my social media. "You never tell us about yourself," someone said. "You need to write more about yourself, your hopes, your fears and the emotional moments from your past."

To that end I now provide the first of a series of the embarrassing moments from my past that I deem to be repeatable.

For those of you who have never sampled the delights of this sketch it can be found here on YouTube.

I'm not very good with celebrities, I often don't recognise them beyond a vague sensation that I should know them from somewhere which has given me an unwarranted sense of superiority over the star-struck common ruck of humanity. I'm a trendy Londoner, I say confidently to myself, I don't fall for all that faux celebrity glamour. I'm as good as any man!

So you can imagine it was acutely damaging to my self-image when I looked up from Till One (where I was working) to find oh-my-god-it's-John-fucking-Cleese-oh-my-god looming over me and immediately burst into a sweat.

Mr Cleese approached the till and explained that he was in the area and decided that what he fancied was a book and that he had spied our emporium of the literary arts and hurried in. He didn't really but if he had at least I would have been forewarned.

He requested a book, I'm not going to say the title because the confidence between a customer and a bookseller is a sacred trust, let's just say it was a perfectly reasonable book to ask for. I looked it up on the computer and found that we didn't have it in stock. Regretfully I informed Mr Cleese of our deficiency and he said "No matter," and requested a second book.

We didn't have that either and I think you all know where this is going. By the fourth non-available book I was just waiting for the question - "Are you sure that this a bookshop?" to which I would have been forced, by statute(1), to reply; "Yes sir, finest in the country." I dread to think what would have happened next.

Fortunately I was saved by the intervention of my manageress who took over at the till and allowed me to flee at the first opportunity.


(1) Compulsory Repetition of Monty Python Quotes Act (1979)

The Last Ever Fictional Character Race Assessment

My friend has just flat out refused to do another month and I think we have enough data to answer our main question if only we could remember what the question was. This February I will be answering a question from much closer to home namely - Do London stories dominate the national news agenda? I say 'no' grumpy northerners say 'yes' - we shall see.

Back to racial representation on American TV and the question of whether non-white non-regulars are more likely to be portrayed as criminals? The answer is yes! Plus... they're massively under represented in the first place by a significant margin.

Month	nw%	wc%	nwc%
December	21%	34%	50%
January	19%	30%	40%
February	21%	30%	34%
Overall	20%	31%	40%

 nw% = percentage of non-white non-regulars.
wc% = percentage of white non-regulars who were criminals.
nwc% = percentage of non-white non-regulars who were criminals.

As you can see the actual proportion NW characters remains consistent over the 3 month period as does the percentage of white characters who are portrayed as criminals. It would have been nice to see whether  the percentage of NW criminals continued to fall  but some people lack the mental toughness to carry on(1).

But Ben what you've got to understand is that black people are a minority in the US and so the shows are bound to reflect that.

You're absolutely right Straw Man but according to the US census (via Wikipedia) non-white people constitute 27.6% of the total population so 20% is an undershot by 7.6%.

Yes but... all the TV industry is based in California and so it's bound to reflect the ethnic mix of that state rather than the country as a whole.

Okay California's non-white population is 25.5%...

I meant Los Angeles, duh, obviously I mean they're not making TV in Sacramento are they?

Well Los Angeles has 49.2%...

But the shows are set in specific regions so some are bound to have more ethnics in than others - right?

But you said....

What?

Never mind - moving on. It just so happens I have a break down by region.

Show	nw%		Setting	nw%
Prime Suspect	41%		New York City	56%
Hawaii 5.0	37%		Hawaii	75%
Person of Interest	33%		New York City	56%
Law and Order: SVU	22%		New York City	56%
The Closer	19%		Los Angeles	49%
Justified	19%		Kentucky	19%
Unforgettable	17%		Queens	59%
CSI	17%		Las Vegas	23%
Leverage	17%		Boston	36%
Burn Notice	16%		Miami	27%
Blue Bloods	16%		New York City	56%
The Mentalist	14%		California	26%
Castle	10%		New York City	56%
Once Upon A Time	10%		Maine	4%
Supernatural	9%		United States	28%
Grimm	8%		Portland	22%

Look see - Once Upon A Time and Justified have more black people than there are in the state. Obviously it all balances out in the end.
Really, you're going with that are you?
Nope I'm going to ask whether British TV is any better and even if it was you'd still be speaking German if it wasn't for us - so there!
I'm certainly not going there with you Straw Man but for the sake of completeness I'm going to post the final show by show break down.

Show	nw%	wc%	nwc%
Prime Suspect	41%	30%	48%
Hawaii 5.0	37%	28%	37%
Person of Interest	33%	37%	33%
Law and Order: SVU	22%	27%	24%
The Closer	19%	28%	86%
Justified	19%	64%	78%
Unforgettable	17%	21%	33%
CSI	17%	27%	33%
Leverage	17%	42%	64%
Burn Notice	16%	43%	50%
Blue Bloods	16%	28%	29%
The Mentalist	14%	25%	50%
Castle	10%	20%	0%
Once Upon A Time	10%	2%	0%
Supernatural	9%	30%	0%
Grimm	8%	32%	14%

So next month the question will be; London centre of the Universe or merely the most logical choice for the Capital of the World?

(1) Apparantly it was the prospect of another 4 episodes of Law & Order: SVU that tipped the balance.

The January TV Race Report

January was an interesting month; we started without Burn Notice and The Closer and said goodbye (permanently) to the US version of Prime Suspect and (temporarily) to Leverage. I've decided to simplify the statistics this time round to make things clearer.

 Some people have asked about what definition of race we are using in this 'study' so I'm going to clarify a few things. Both my friend, who is very kindly watching all this TV for me, and I are Europeans from Europe. This means we can't reliably identify Hispanic characters so we've decided, like the US census, to classify them as an ethnicity and ignore them. Instead we're applying European race standards; if you look Greek or Portuguese then you're white - if you're browner than that or have African or East Asian features then you're non-white.

We're aware that this is a completely arbitrary and irrational set of definitions but then the whole concept of race is irrational and arbitrary. We are dying for someone to do a proper study so any time someone wants to step in - feel free.

Below are the overall numbers so far for each show while, as I suspected they would, the aggregate figures for all programmes show an 80/20 split white/black in non-regulars with 32% of white non-regulars and 45% of black non-regulars cast as criminals.

	black %	white criminal %	black criminal %	episodes
Prime Suspect	41%	30%	48%	5
Hawaii 5.0	35%	35%	55%	4
Person of Interest	34%	35%	32%	4
CSI	20%	38%	38%	4
The Closer	19%	28%	86%	4
Unforgettable	17%	29%	14%	3
Leverage	17%	42%	64%	6
Burn Notice	16%	43%	50%	3
Justified	15%	61%	80%	2
Law and Order: SVU	15%	34%	50%	3
The Mentalist	14%	30%	57%	4
Once Upon A Time	11%	0%	0%	6
Castle	10%	20%	0%	4
Grimm	7%	28%	0%	5
Blue Bloods	5%	35%	0%	3
Supernatural	0%	27%	0%	2

So the good news for fictional black characters is that as long as you keep your numbers down you're less likely to be a criminal.

Starting with a Dissapointment

The downside to the wham episode cliffhanger season closer is that, when the new season finally rolls around, you have to sit through a dull opening episode. Or at least I think it's dull, the Evil Monster Boy tends to shout 'best episode ever' and rewind to make me watch anything I've missed.

I put up with this behaviour by telling myself that he's only sixteen and, besides, in a few years be living somewhere else(1). I don't blame writers and producers for wanting to have wham episodes but like much in television these days it seems to have become a requirement rather than a joy. The problem is that the real appeal of a TV series(2) is spending quality time with fictional characters you like. This involves building a consensus reality that the viewer can slip into once a week with an expectation that they're going to get more of the same.

A wham episode by definition blows this all to shit so that you spend the summer wondering what the fudge is going to happen next. That's one source of dissapointment but now the consensus has been shattered it means that the primary role of the season opener is to recreate that consensus - everything else, story, character and plausibility are secondary. This is why they often feel unsatisfactory.

Sometimes that have to spend two episodes putting humpty dumpty back together(3) which just doubles the tedium. So please, for the love of god, can we skip the wham episode this season.

(1) No doubt I will be sad and lonesome without him but at least I'll be able to fast forward through the dull bits of season openers.
(2) British TV hardly ever makes proper TV series any more so the art form is mainly confined to the US and, oddly, Denmark.
(3) Often taking the opportunity to remove any troublesomely popular POC characters and replace with them with skinny redheads.

The D-Word

Ninety percent of what is written about diets is total bollocks. If you want to lose weight then you've got to eat less and exercise more. This diet tweeted to me recently is a case in point, miracle foods pah! I laugh at miracle foods, I pour scorn on your pseudo-scientific bollocks and I certainly ain't going to pay over the odds for them. For one thing one of the few immediate benefits of a diet is that you save money on food.

Tips for the friends and family of fat people...

1) If you think that a fat person goes through life blissfully unaware of their weight - think again. Every time we don't fit into a seat, get short of breath going up some stairs, get called a fat cunt by a random stranger is a reminder. Every little public humiliation at turnstiles, narrow doorways and mirrors reminds us that we are fat(1). Do not feel you have to remind us every time you see us how much porkier we've got, we know, and if you keep doing it we're going to start avoiding you (just like we do mirrors).

2) If you really want to help ask your fat friend what help they need and then give it. The only way to lose weight is to make a sustained change in lifestyle, you cannot force someone to do that you can only help at the margins. If you feel the words "we need to make an intervention" appearing on your lips I cordially invite you to put a sensitive part of your anatomy in a mangle and turn the handle.

Tips for fat people.

Note I'm talking to fat people here not you smug bastards with your "oh I've got a roll of fat on my belly I've just put so much weight". The basic resting state for a first world human being is plump live with it.

1) You're going to have to change what you eat - sorry.

2) Lose weight for yourself not for other people. Use whatever method works for you over the long term.

3) As far as I know the best way to lose weight is to keep a daily food diary (see psychological tricks).

4) Eat some fruit and some vegetables every day, avoid chocolate and sweets.

5) I really mean it about the chocolate and sweets.

6) Weigh yourself once a week and make sure you record it accurately but don't feel you have to share this information (see 7)

7) It is much easier to lie to other people than it is to yourself (think about it). It's always tempting to hive off the responsibility for keeping yourself on the straight and narrow to a friend or family member. Then you lie to them about your weight and... I don't need to tell you what happens you've probably done this already - probably more than once.

8) Some people put on weight easier than other people. What can I say? Life's unfair. Other people's eating habits are not your responsibility (unless you're a parent of course).

Psychological Tricks

1) Blame, guilt, shame - none of these are helpful.

2) Decide roughly what kind of weight would suit you, be honest about it. I'm currently 186 kg and for me anything under 120 kg would be gravy. Now I may change my mind when I get there but merely being fat rather than unable to fly economy class in an airplane is my current goal.

3) Do it for yourself - tell everyone else to shut the fuck up.

4) Find the worst offender - ie: chocolate, cake, deep fried Mars Bars - and stop eating it.

5) I don't count calories on fruit or vegetables because I don't eat enough of them as it is. That gives me one less thing to worry about and an incentive to eat healthily.

6) The food diary is for you and you alone. If people try to step in and regulate your diary tell them to fuck off. Your body, your decisions, your diet.

In Summery

These women would be considered too porky for a lead TV role!

1. Do not measure yourself by the people you see on the TV, they are professionals who are paid to sustain an arduous and ultimately unhealthy lifestyle in order to create the illusion that the normal state for a human being is just this side of famished. Think of it as stunt work, it looks impressive but you wouldn't want to try it at home.

2. There are health problems associated with being fat, Type 2 diabetes, an increased risk of this that and the other and you become more attractive to members of the big cat family(2). If you are fat than you will probably face some of these problems and you need to factor that into your decision. However nobody I know has ever scared themselves thin.

3. It's unfair but the food industry is working really hard to make you as fat as possible. Most of easily available tasty stuff is hideously fatty, sugary and god-knows-what-elsey. I hope this will change one day but until it does you should behave as if the food industry has embarked on a conspiracy to make you morbidly obese. They haven't of course, you're far to insignificant for that, but the behavioural outcome is the same.

4. Eat less overall. Eat fruit and vegetables. Avoid chocolate and sweets.

5. Do some exercise - even if it's just half an hour's walk each day.

6. Did I mention that you need to eat less food? Right - moving on.

7. Find what works for you - stick to it.

8. Do not try to hive off responsibility for monitoring your food or weight to other people. You're going to have to be doing this for the rest of your life so you have to take responsibility for it yourself. Besides are you a grown up or not?

9. Human beings live complicated interconnected lives and we cannot control a great deal of what happens to us but sure as fuck most of us can control what gets put in our mouth. Take control of your life, if you want to be fatter eat more, if you want to be less fat then eat less.

10. Everybody knows all this really - it's just a bugger to put into practise.

---------
(1) By the way if none of this applies to you - you're either not fat or are living in such an enviable state of cosmic bliss that I wouldn't want you to change on my behalf.
(2) As food dummy.

Hang on a Moment

I frequent cry I hear during the Leveson Inquiry is that the public were as much to blame as the press - after all are we not celebrity obsessed. Is this not what drove the law abiding journalists to stoop to such low and immoral acts.

I call bollocks(1). The News of the World had a circulation of 2.8 million and the adult population of the UK is 51 million so that means that only 5% of adults bought the paper. This does not constitute a majority. Even if 3 people avidly read the paper (by presumably nicking it off the guy who did buy it) then that's still 20% - still not a majority.

I'm not saying that there's not a market for celebrity gossip but I'm increasingly doubtful that the culture is quite as celebrity obsessed as the media likes to believe. Certainly the media is celebrity obsessed but then they're drawn from a narrow demographic already(2).

So next time that someone insists that 'we're to blame' ask them if they can prove it.

(1) That's bullshit in American.
(2) Not going to go there.

Being the Chosen One is Grimm

Grimm, read the script for the pilot and didn't like it. Was given a preview of Episodes 1 and 2 and... It could go either way but why?

Grimm suffers from excessive destiny syndrome. Life Buffy Summers our hero is the Chosen One, of the pure and wondrous bloodline of the Brothers Grimm who can see the monsters for what they really are etc etc. If Grimm stood magnificantly alone this wouldn't be a problem but since we are drowning in people with inate powers who have been chosen by fate to... whatever it is they are chosen to do it comes across as a tad stale. He has a black best friend as well, wouldn't it be nice if the black guy has the special powers for a change but that's a whole different rant.

So why am I planning to watch this series when it finally washes up in the UK as part of some package that Channel 5 bought in order to get something they really wanted?

Below this point are spoilers - read no further...........................

Because there's a reformed big bad wolf living in his town who has all the best lines, all the best scenes and is, in fact, a much better character than our hero, his black best friend and his wafer thin girlfriend.

The bit where he rips the guys arm off and stares at it as if deciding whether to eat it or drop it was worth wading through the hero angst that permeates the rest of the story. I suspect that over the course of the season it will turn into a buddy series between the two...

He's a cop with secret family history and second sight, he's a big bad wolf trying to go straight, together they fight crime.

If I was the black best friend I'd start looking for a new job.

October Fictional Criminal Report

The programmes watched by my informant this month were; Castle. Hawaii 5.0. Unforgettable, The Mentalist, Prime Suspect, Person of Interest and Blue Bloods.

Against the Wall was dropped when she point blank refused to continue watching it.

For how the classifications work you can check this blog here.

There were no OBWs this month and only one Evil Brit.

Type: Number (percentage of group/percentage of total)

White American: 60
Sympathetic: 8 (13%/9%)
Unsympathetic: 24 (40%/26%)
Vicious: 9 (15%/10%)
Career: 28 (32%/21%)

Non-white American: 19
Sympathetic: 3 (16%/3%)
Unsympathetic: - (-/-)
Vicious: - (-/-)
Career: 16 (84%/18%)

White Foriegner: 7
Sympathetic: 1 (14%/1%)
Unsympathetic: 1 (14%/1%)
Vicious: 1 (14%/1%)
Career: 4 (57%/4%)

Non-white Foriegner: 4
Sympathetic: 1% (25%/1%)
Unsympathetic: - (-/-)
Vicious: - (-/-)
Career: 3 (75%/3%)

It's still too early to draw firm conclusions but one trend is clear; whereas the White American criminals span the gamut of roles and motivations from desperate citizen to vicious serial killers the vast majority (77% so far) of non-white American criminals are depicted as part of a criminal class.

Remember none of this 'research' conforms to even the most basic standards of empiricism and thus we are not even going to pretend to defend it.

The September Fictional Criminal Report

I was watching Castle one week and there was a character, a former career criminal, who was being forced back into a life of crime by a much nastier career criminal. The sympathetic criminal was white and the nasty irredeemable criminal was black. Now I immediately jumped to a conclusion, I don't think I need to tell you what it was, but then I wondered if I was correct.

Since being on the wrong side of the pond I tend to see American shows at widely separated timed from when they are first broadcast I pitched this idea to an American friend of mine and they've agreed to compile the statistics for me. I might verify the figures as and when the episodes become available in the UK.

Who's counted

Any speaking criminal character or one who is identified by name. Mooks, in such shows as Hawaii 5.0, aren't counted unless they do something more interesting than pop-up like a paper target on Hogan's Ally.

The criminals are first broken down by nationality into American and non-American and then into white and non-white. European Latin American characters (Argentinians and the like) count as white. This is all going to be subjective so you mileage may vary. The actual criminal categories are as follows:-

Sympathetic: an ex-con forced back into the life by overwhelming circumstances, a person driven to extreme acts by abusive partners or bosses or just someone who snaps in a manner that we can both understand and empathise with.

Unsympathetic: Someone who commits a crime, possibly only one time, out of greed, or love or fear. Somebody who, under different circumstances, might have been us but chose badly and did something morally reprehensible.

Vicious: serial killers, sadistic mobsters, psychopathic gang leaders etc.

Career: mafia soldiers, gangbangers, street punks, people from the wrong area without an alibi.

Evil Brit: I don't think this needs an explanation (except that terrorists from Northern Ireland technically count).

Finally a non-criminal character who turns up with such regularity that I thought it would be interesting to do a crude count. This is the OBW or Obstructive Black Woman; this is a one or two scene character, often in a minor position of power, who gets in the way of our hero and has to be circumvented (and preferably humiliated into the bargain).

September saw the tail end of a couple of series and the start the new seasons. These are the ones my friend watched. The Closer, The Glades, Rizzoli & Isles, Burn Notice, The Protector, Alphas, Castle, Hawaii 5.0, Unforgettable, The Mentalist, Prime Suspect, Person of Interest, Blue Bloods and Against the Wall.

Total number of criminals 87.

Type: Number (percentage of group/percentage of total)
White American: 61
Sympathetic: 8 (13%/9%)
Unsympathetic: 14 (23%/16%)
Vicious: 11 (18%/13%)
Career: 28 (46%/32%)

Non-white American: 15
Sympathetic: 2 (18%/2%)
Unsympathetic: 1 (9%/1%)
Vicious: 1 (9%/1%)
Career: 7 (64%/8%)

White Foriegner: 7
Sympathetic: 2 (29%/2%)
Unsympathetic: - (-/-)
Vicious: 2 (29%/2%)
Career: 3 (43%/3%)

Non-white Foriegner: 4
Sympathetic: - (-/-)
Unsympathetic: - (-/-)
Vicious: 1 (25%/1%)
Career: 3 (75%/3%)

There were 4 Evil Brits making them 5% of all criminals but this is probably an artefact of Alphas which does love itself some Evil Brit.

There were also 4 Obstructive Black Women (counting the new Lieutenant in Castle only once).

Conclusions: the sample size is too low for anything to definitely emerge, I will point out that the vast majority of criminals are white but non-white criminals are much more likely to be career criminals than anything else.

Like Goldy or Bronzy

The trouble with taking a smug superior attitude is that you can't always be sure it's justified and if it isn't then one leaves oneself open to ridicule - and that just wont do. Still I was watching the series finale of Falling Skies and found myself thinking that if the irony wasn't deliberate than the makers of the series must be dumber than pig shit.

Falling Skies follows the adventures of the survivors of an alien invasion as they attempt to preserve what's left of the civilian population and harass the invaders. It's an enjoyable show although I suspect that anyone who'd actually fought with an insurgency will want to watch the combat sequences with the sound track replaced by the chase music from Benny Hill.

Like I said the irony of the show didn't really sink in until the last episode. The location, Boston and the name the survivors take 'The 2nd Massachusetts' are all chosen to evoke folk memories of the American Revolution and just in case nobody noticed the historian/militia leader who serves as the series hero explicit references the revolution when they face off against an alien attack. I didn't record the programme so I can't give you the details of the speech but I remember something about militias striking a blow for freedom against a more powerful foe.

The thing is the though; if you're looking for an analogy - a brave people facing a doomed battle against a technologically superior enemy who seems intent on wiping them out and stealing all their land- it isn't the American War of Independence. Right continent wrong protagonists.

The makers of this series have to be aware of that - don't they? They can't really be that historically unaware - can they?

Translation Convention

I couple of reviewers have commented on the presence in my books of what some might call British-isms which others might call English. Sorry, cheap shot, couldn't resist it, moving on. Sometimes this is couched as a positive, sometimes as a negative but mostly as a minor drawback that is outweighed by the books good points (phew). My initial reaction, like most British people, is to snarl in unseemly fashion and go into a long rant about how 'we seem to be perfectly capable of figuring out American-isms (called by some people English) from the text why can't they' blah, cultural imperialism, moan, short sightedness, insensitivity etc etc.

I was halfway through a moan of this type when I asked myself - do we? So, in a spirit of inquiry, because it does you good to periodically test your assumptions and also because I'll do just about anything other than get down to the business of writing, I decided to check. I've taken random chapters from the British editions of American authors - sticking to books set in modern America (because my books are set in modern Britain).

King Maker by Maurice Broaddus
Published by Angry Robot (2010)
Chapter Seven (p166-187)
Actually there's quite a lot of drug jargon in this chapter which I didn't count because I suspected it was new to a lot of people on both sides of the pond(1).

American-isms: Arts and Crafts Era, Crown Royal bag, Kool cigarette, senior (high school), quarter (money), squad car, aluminium cans, section 8 housing(2), Player magazine, parking lot and hose (fishnet).

(1) Broaddus evocation of the junkie life is particularly brilliant here.
(2) I'm not sure if this isn't Indianapolis specific or not.


Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
Published by Gollancz (2009)
Chapter 7 (p176-206)

American-isms: Restonic(3), Little League Baseball(4)... and that's it. A quick flick through revealed pavement rather than sidewalk - this book has been doctored. My thesis has definitely taken a hit.

This is why you should check your facts before embarking on a good moan, especially a nationalistic one.

(3) Is this a real brand name or made up?
(4) we know what baseball is it's the 'little league' that's foreign.


The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambera
Published by The Women's Press (1982)
Chapter Seven (p161-174)

American-isms: parking lot and.... bloody hell my theory is going down in flames.

Mind you it's been thirty years since I first read this book, scanning the chapter reminded me how good it was and now its been recycled into the reading pile.

Seriously I'd better choose something firmly in the vernacular to retrieve my honour...

White Night by Jim Butcher
Published by Orbit (2008)
Chapter 7 (p65-76

Surely the aggressively American (and I mean that in a good way) Jim Butcher is going to help me out here.

American-ism: sidewalk, mailbox and fire truck.

Notes: unless I'm mistaken Orbit changed leash to lead but kept sidewalk - interesting. Strictly speaking I could have included mail as an Americanism because while we use mail (as in Royal Mail) we generally refer to the post (the post has arrived, post box) but I decided that would be a sign of desperation.

Now to the last throw of the dice (or is it die?)

Lullaby by Ed McBain
Published by Pan Books (1989)
Chapter 7 (p125-152)

Surely the 87th Precinct novels, from which I learnt, in context, that an Oldsmobile was a car and that Oxfords were a type of shoe, would bear me out. Shall we have a look?

American-isms: Jakies, sidewalk, track (athletics), apartment & apartment building.


I'd say that the basis of the moan is... well marginal at best. Without comparing a range of American editions of British books I'd say it was unlikely that more American-isms were let through than British-isms going the other way.

I'm off to complain about something else.

Get Yourself Free

I was once again contemplating the problem of pushy minor characters and how they can encrust the bottom of your narrative like barnacles when this particular earworm arrrived in my head and refused to leave. Because misery loves company I publish it for your delectation.

With apologies to Paul "Gundwani" Simon.

The problem is all inside your head
She said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle
To be free
There must be fifty ways
To ditch your character.

She said remember you’re the author
of your work
And playing god with them has
Always been a perk
You don’t want imaginary people
Treating you just like a jerk
There must be fifty ways
To kill your character

[CHORUS]
Just nuke them from space, Grace
Make a new plot, Dot
Pretend they got lost, Joss
Just get yourself free
Put em on a bus, Gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just let them fade, Jade
And get yourself free

It really is pathetic that your own
creations cause you pain
I wish there was something I could do
To make you smile again
I said I appreciate that
If you’d just repeat the refrain
About the fifty ways…

She said why don't we both
Just sleep on it tonight
And I believe in the morning
You'll begin to see the light
And then she edited the chapter
And I realised that she was right
There must be fifty ways
To kill your character.

[CHORUS 2]
You just stab them in the back, Jack
Get them all hitched, Rich
Don’t need to justify, Tye
Just get yourself free
Let them ascend, Brend
It don’t need to make sense much.
Put them in a coma, Rona
And get yourself free.

[CHORUS 3]
Have them fall ill. Jill
Stuff them in fridge, Bridge
Have a psycho make a call, Paul
And get yourself rid.
Marry them off, Joff
You don’t have to explain much
Nail them to a tree, Dee
And get yourself free.

Multinationals - Threat or Menace?

For writers of everything from Cyberpunk to Literary Fiction the multinational corporation has provided a fruitful source of menace, bad guys and, for the boys at Kudos, deus ex machinas. Like the Russians during the cold war or the Islamic terrorists post 9/11 it is barely considered necessary to provide them with a motive - they're multinationals - evil incorporated.

I've often heard the phrase - bigger than the GDP of a small country - and after a while I wondered 'how much bigger?' So I looked up the turnover of the world's really big companies and compared them to the GDP of various countries.

So the biggest company of all, Wallmart, has a turnover of $419 billion. Looking down our list of adjusted GDP as calculated by the IMF we find that Wallmart is bigger than country 29 on the list Malaysia ($412 billion).

The next biggest company is ExxonMobil at $370 billion which makes it bigger than Sweden ($352 bn) but smaller than Nigeria (374 bn). After Exxon come a raft of big oil companies, American, Dutch, French and Chinese, until we come to the first manufacturing company on the list - Toyota. The Japanese motor manufacturer weighs in at $204 billion which makes it smaller than Israel ($219 bn) but larger than Denmark ($203 bn).

So there you go - multinationals are bigger than small countries but probably not as big as the guys at Kudos think they are.

The Wisdom of Woody Allen

You read your own reviews - this is a given. It's not that I wouldn't believe a writer if he(1) said he never read the reviews of his own work but I certainly wouldn't lend them a fiver or sit next to them on a long plane flight. It's not the bad ones who freak you out, although they reduce me to incandescent rage, nor is it the ones that attribute you with strange motives and agendas which generally just puzzle me.

No - the ones that keep me up at night are the ones that describe my work as 'light', 'fun' and 'inconsequential'.

Inconsequential - moi? Can't they see the depths of my subtext, the cleverness of a metatextual metaphors - am I being just too clever?

Perhaps I should make my subtext more obvious or maybe I should dispense with such bourgeois notions as plot, character and syntax.

Fortunately it's then the scene from Stardust Memories by Woody Allen flashes in my mind. The one where he meets the Martians. When he asks them whether he shouldn't do something more meaningful with his life to be of service to mankind. The Martian tells him: 'You want to do mankind a real service? Tell funnier jokes.'

So 'fun', 'lightweight', 'enjoyable fluff' or 'an easy way to pass the weekend' fine, these are better words than 'unread', 'remaindered' and of course - 'unpublished.' So thank you Woody Allen for everything you've taught me and one day, I promise, I'll sit down and watch 'Interiors' with an open mind.

(1) he/she, him/her etc etc

Novel Associations

Well it's not the combination that sprang to my mind...

My Non Review of Sucker Punch

The Evil Monster Boy wanted to go see Sucker Punch really badly and not just in an ordinary digital print but in super migraine inducing size at the IMAX cinema. I on the other hand, possibly because I am not a 15 year old boy, found myself vaguely repulsed by the trailer and decided that seeing the film was, in the language of marketing, a non-aspiration.

So non-aspirational was this film that yesterday I paid for the Evil Monster Boy and his friend to go see it without me. Unfortunately I still had to take myself and my credit card down to Waterloo to get the tickets so that left me with a couple of hours to kill. I migrated first to the second hand book stalls under Waterloo Bridge and thence, as if drawn by magic, into the BFI restaurant. I took a window seat and enjoyed a braised pork and garlic mash main course followed by coffee and cake(1) for about £2 less than I would have paid to see the film.

Outside the sun set over the Thames while the Kinks fought with GLaDOS for my mental soundtrack and waves of tourists washed up and down the embankment. So go see Sucker Punch if you want to, you might even enjoy it, or perhaps treat yourself to a decent meal instead.




(1) This was a triumph!

Support Your Local Film Industry

Strictly speaking the UK no longer has what you'd call an actual 'film industry' but occasionally a good script will fight it's way through the army of gibbons to make it to your local multiplex.

It is said that 'Attack the Block' is such a film and so I told the Evil Monster Boy that we mustn't miss it when it does its, no doubt, blink and you'll miss it national release. Not just because it looks like a really good film but because it's important to support British talent.

The Evil Monster Boy agreed because, what with the last Harry Potter film being finished, there's a lot of spare talent lying around. So if you don't want to spend the rest of your life wondering where you're own culture went(1) - go see Attack the Block.

(1) Unless you're an American or something obviously.

Not Much Happening Here

I apologise for the sparsity of blogs recently but I'm under orders, from mein publishers, to work on my website and blog in readiness for the US Launch on Feb 1. When they're up and running I shall announce it here and get back to drowning you in the trivia of my life.

Yesterday's Signing

I was going to have a blog about my signing yesterday but I can't find the USB cable that connects to my camera :(. Instead you're just going to have to imagine the screaming crowds, the noise and finally the police being called in to kettle the unruly mob that threatened to destroy Forbidden Planet when they ran out of copies of my book.