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In which I post about The Next Big Thing and am both a day early and a day late

Hello. Apologies for being a day late in blogging. Yesterday just sort of got away from me a bit. Apologies also for being a day early – today I’m a blogging in response to Nikki Goodman‘s Next Big Thing post, which I’m really supposed to post on Wednesday. But I figured that if I was both a day early and a day late, that would average to being precisely and perfectly on time.

So the idea of The Next Big Thing is that we blog about our writerly works in progress. Now I don’t normally blog about writing, because repeated blogposts about how today I mainly sat on my bottom and peered at a screen aren’t desperately interesting. I also don’t usually do chain blogposts, but Nikki asked so nicely, and provided questions to answer, thus minimizing the thinking involved. How could I refuse?

So here are some answers to questions about my current novel-in-progress.

 

Q. What is the working title of your next book?

Ghost Stories. And it always has been. Normally I’m terrible at titles and the drift and evolve over time, but this one dropped into my head fully formed, and I can’t imagine it changing.

Q. From where did the idea come?

From the main character – I was taken with the idea of a protagonist who is a stage medium, but my first attempt to write her as a young funny chick lit heroine didn’t work. I’d given that character a mother who was an old-time stage performer, and eventually (I’m not always the sharpest tool in the box) it dawned on me that the mum was much more interesting than the daughter and should be the main character. The rest flowed from there.

 

Q. Under which genre does your book fall?

This one (which is my second novel) is quite literary, which was a bit unexpected. My first novel is a rom-com.

Q: Which actors would you choose to play the part of your characters for a movie?

My main characters are Pat, who’s the medium, and Louise, a mum whose teenage son has been stabbed. Pat’s in her 60s by the time most of the action takes place. There are loads of fantastic British actresses who could play her. Maybe Pauline Collins – she has a mixture of warmth and grit that would work really well.

Pat also appears as a teenager. I don’t know who could play the young Pat – I’d probably go for someone new and completely unfamiliar.

In my imagination Louise just is Anne-Marie Duff, so that’s an easy one.

Q. What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?

It’s about a mother of a murdered son and a woman who says she can talk to the dead.

Q. Will you self-publish or be represented by an agent?

Too soon to say. Ideally traditionally published with an agent. I’ve talked about why I’m not mad keen on self-publishing at the moment here, but never say never.

 

Q. How long did it take to write the first draft?

I’ll tell you when I’ve written it. For my first novel the first draft took a neat 8 weeks, writing 2000 words a day 5 days a week. This one’s going much much slower, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I’m hoping it’ll make for a slightly less crappy first draft than I managed last time.

Q: With which books within your genre would your story compare?

I hope it’s unique, but structurally it definitely owes something to Margaret Attwood – I love inventive narrative structure. There’s also a hint of Kate Morton about it. I do like a bit of a timeslip.

Q: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I’m not sure. I’m not a great fan of doing x-factor type emotional dedications. I’m not writing it for my dead kitten or wonderous great aunt. I’m writing it because I’m a writer, who wants to be a published writer, so writing books is kind of what I do.

Q: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

Well it’s going to be bloody marvellous  obviously. And there’s a  rock band in it and a deceased Pekingese and a Somme veteran called Stanley (also deceased). What more could you want?

As always, please do commenting and following/subscribing if you feel so led. Bye-bye.

In which I think about Jimmy Savile and manage to generate two entirely valid and utterly contradictory points of view

I grew up in Scarborough, where Jimmy Savile, British TV and yoof radio God of the 1970s and 80s, had one of his many and various abodes. I believe he also owned houses in Leeds, London and on the south coast. Over the last week Savile’s reputation as a charitable TV eccentric has taken a premier league battering. If you’ve missed out on the story this is as good a introduction as any. In the week since the story broke the allegations have come thick and fast, and the perception seems to be that Savile’s abuse of young girls was something of an open secret for a large part of his career.

Now, like many people who live, or have lived, in Scarborough I have my own Jimmy Savile anecdote. He was (sort of) at my wedding reception. EngineerBoy and myself got married in Scarborough and our reception was at a large hotel on the south cliff, not far from Savile’s flat in the town. Essentially, that meant that the hotel bar was his local, and, on the night of our wedding, there he was resplendent in shell suit and string vest. This was 2002, a good 15 years after the height of his TV fame, but Savile’s presence was still enough to cause some small excitement amongst those guests who’d grown up with “Jim’ll Fix It” as a Saturday tea time fixture. Various people got him to pose for photos, including one in which he cheerfully licked a plant (for reasons known only to himself). I’m told that when invited to come and join our party, Savile declined, commenting that he, “didn’t like being around happy people.” I was also told, by more than one female guest, that Sir Jimmy had taken a vigorous feel of their bottom while posing for pictures. Generally, the women involved shrugged off the fact with a kind of world-weary, “typical, dirty old man,” attitude.

And that seems to be symptomatic of the way that a lot of people over the years responded to Savile, and it’s an attitude that most of us have probably adopted at some point or another. I suspect there’ll be very few women reading this who’ve never had their arse pinched or slapped by a stranger or distant acquaintance, and simply shrugged it off. I certainly have. In the moment it feels more pragmatic and a lot easier than saying something and being accused of being shrill and over-sensitive.

Many of us will also have had situations where we’ve heard rumours of something more sinister going on. For example, a teacher at my former secondary school was jailed last year for sexual relations with students dating back into the 1980s. The shocking point about that story was that it hadn’t happened sooner. There were constant rumours, when I was a pupil, about that particular teacher sleeping with students. Some of those rumours must surely have made it back to the staff room. Maybe not, or maybe, without a clear accusation in front of them staff and governors found it easier not to dig too deeply. No-one wants to be the person who is seen as taking things too seriously and making unnecessary fuss.

And here’s where I manage to generate and hold two potentially contradictory opinions. Firstly, I absolutely applaud anyone  finds the courage to speak out and try to take action when they’ve experienced abuse, whether they do that immediately, a week later, or several years later. It’s completely understandable that young girls don’t speak out about abuse at the time. Part of the psychology of an abuser is in the ability to convince the victim that they’re special or chosen, and that they’re party to secrets that must be held close. It can take years, if it happens at all, to break down the mental and emotional bindings created by an abusive elder.

But secondly, there is one really big difference between the case of Jimmy Savile and the teacher I mentioned. The teacher was still alive when the allegations came to light. He was arrested, charged, tried and found guilty, after the opportunity to defend himself in court. Savile will never have that opportunity, and with no opportunity to defend himself I don’t see how he can fairly be proven guilty. Does that mean he remains innocent? Well, clearly not from the point of view of the women who say they were raped or sexually assaulted by him, but legally it probably does. It may be that there are other people who conspired to assist or hide any abuse that occurred and there may be criminal charges that can be brought against them. That might offer some small very sense of resolution to the women involved.

I don’t think that even Jimmy Savile’s closest friends or (rapidly diminishing group of) defenders would argue that he wasn’t an odd man. But odd isn’t the same as guilty. Eccentric isn’t the same as criminal. Weird isn’t the same as abusive. Any woman who experienced sexual abuse, by Jimmy Savile or anyone else, should always feel able to speak about it. Their stories are important, and they form a, too often ignored, part of our cultural make-up. We need to learn when it’s not ok to turn a blind eye, when the other adults around and about need to be awkward and shrill and make a fuss. But we can’t try a dead man.

This is an almost overwhelmingly sad situation. There’s a group of women who experienced incredible trauma and only felt safe to speak out when the man they believe abused them is cold in the ground. There’s a man whose reputation is comprehensively destroyed with no means to offer a defence. And there’s little hope of justice for anyone.

A rare Friday blogpost. It’s crazy, crazy behaviour, I tell you.

A rare Friday blogpost for you. And a rare posting of a short story rather than a random rant.

This is the story I wrote for last week’s 42 event in Worcester. 42 is a spoken word event focused on gothic, fantasy, sci-fi and horror writing, so I described this story as “what happens when you get a chick lit writer very drunk and insist that she writes horror.” The piece was written as a monologue to perform, rather than as a story to be read quietly to oneself, so in that spirit I do expect you to read it aloud to yourself (and to any adjacent people or animals) putting on your best The Only Way is Essex voice. Off you go…

 

<<Space where title would go, if I’d thought of one, which I haven’t>>

1st January. Weight 12 stone (12 whole stone, which must be 95% sage and onion stuffing. I like totes don’t even like sage and onion stuffing).

New Year’s Resolutions.

This year I will:

Number 1: lose 2 stone.

Number 2: only drink responsibly and in moderation.

Number 3: open a savings account to facilitate the buying of Manolo Blahnik heels (I’m realistic – last season’s off of Ebay is like fine).

Number 4: find Carrot. I feel a bit guilts about not looking for him last night but it was like New Year’s Eve and he’s a cat so it’s totally not major. Cats are all right outside for a like a few nights, aren’t they?

Number 5: And I will totally do something about my neighbour, cos the noises are like freaking me right out. Yeah. Totally. Like tomorrow. Yeah. Tomorrow I will totally do something about my neighbour.

Number 6: I will spend less time on facebook.

I go to update my facebook status about my resolutions. There seems to be some new joke going round about brains. Like whatever.

 

 

17th January. Savings £6.74 Weight 12 stone 3, but everyone bloats a bit in winter. Don’t they?

So I didn’t have to do anything about my neighbour in the end. They came, like someone came, with an ambulance and they knocked on the door and then it sounded like they maybe broke the door. And he’s gone now, so that’s fine. It’s good. I don’t think I could have put up with the moaning noises very much longer.

I put the news on when I got in from work. It had gone all weird though, so I put it on Hollyoaks and opened a bottle of Pinot instead. I read through facebook on my phone. Loads of people have got this “Brains. Brains. Brains” thing on their status. It’s totes annoying. I hate not knowing what the joke is.

There’s still no sign of Carrot.

 

 

19th January Savings 74p (due to unexpectedly having to pay overdraft fee from Christmas). Weight 11 stone 12, which is like 5lbs in 2 days cos I’m on this totally incredible detox thing that Amanda Holden does.

 

Anyway, that’s not even the most exciting thing. The most exciting thing is that there are totally like TV cameras in my street, and the police came back last night and they’ve put like all this tape stuff around my neighbour’s house and all these guys keep going in wearing these like really ugly onesies. It’s like totes fabuloso.

So this afternoon, I put on an extra set of eyelashes, and squeezed into my little black dress, the nice one from Jigsaw, not the skanky New Look one, and I just stuck my head out to have a little look, cos I thought maybe I might get on the telly. They like to interview the neighbours don’t they? You know, like all those weird old women you see saying that the man in the flat downstairs never looked like the sort to do a crazed stalking.

As soon as I got outside though all these police came running and yelling at me to stay indoors, which is like totally unfair, cos if there’s telly in my street I like totally deserve to be on it. And I’d already texted Andrea to tell her I was going to be on the news, and she’s all going to think I was making it up.

So I then put the telly on, to see what they’re talking about that’s better than interviewing me. You could like see my house but they weren’t even talking about my neighbour though. They were all wittering on about some dude called Patient zero. Boring!

Still no sign of Carrot.

 

 

20th January Savings – still 74p. Weight 12 stone, which is totally not really my fault.

 

There’s still police next door, and now there’s one outside my house too. He’s called Anthony. He’s actually kind of cute. I totally friended him. Would going out with a policeman be cool? Uniforms are hot, but it’s not like he’s a fireman. Maybe, I could persuade him to become a detective. That’s definitely cooler, isn’t it? And I bet they like earn more.

Anyway, it’s totally Anthony’s fault that I put 2lbs back on. I was happily doing my detox, and then he was all standing outside my door saying I couldn’t go out, but that they could bring me some food. And I meant to say, “No thanks, babe. I’m detoxing,” but then I saw that one of the tv cameramen had a bacon sandwich. So like yeah.

Oh yeah, that’s the thing. No-one in the street’s allowed to go out. Apparently my neighbour was this Patient Zero dude, which sounds weird. Patient Zero sounds like something out of Doctor Who. I say that to Anthony, and ask if my neighbour was plotting to take over the universe. He just looks at me and shakes his head. Not much sense of humour, Anthony. He’ll have to work on that if we’re going to be together.

I put the telly on for a bit, cos I’m not allowed to go anywhere. It’s some Jeremy Kyle thing with a woman saying her ex-boyfriend “turned” and ate her bull terrier’s brains. Like how gross is that?

Still no sign of Carrot.

 

 

22nd January 2am.

It’s gone quiet now, which is good I think. I take a tiny peek out of my bedroom window, but there’s no-one in the street. Not even Anthony. He’s probably gone on a break, or maybe he’s gone altogether. Maybe it’s all over now, and he’s been allowed to go home.

I think that might not be it though, because before it went quiet it went really really loud, and there was shouting. Not shouting. Screaming. And it sounded like it might be Anthony screaming. But it probably wasn’t. I think that probably he’s just gone on a break, and that if I pull the duvet up over my head and go back to sleep, everything will be all right again in the morning.

 

That didn’t work though. I kept thinking about the man who came to see me yesterday. The man – he said he wasn’t police, and he wasn’t from the council and he wasn’t a doctor, but he wouldn’t say what he was – just that he was here to make sure everything was safe. And that seemed good. Like safe is good. Right. And he asked me all about my neighbour, and I gave him my best performance, even though it wasn’t on the telly. He seemed a bit cross when I told him about the noises, and then he asked if I had any pets and I told him about Carrot being missing, and he just rolled his eyes. And then he asked me if I even watched the news, and I said I didn’t really see what that had to do with anything, and I asked him when I’d be allowed to go out and go back to work, cos I need to get on with saving for my Manolos, but I don’t think he even knew what Manolos were. Some people are just like totes ignorant.

I couldn’t get back to sleep, so I went on facebook, but people’s statuses are weird. Half of them are still doing this “Brains, brains, brains” thing and the other half are all about how someone’s coming or about how France has got it too and it’s not safe on the continent. I don’t know what that’s about. Probably something to do with the euro. See. I totally know about the news.

In the end I put the TV on, but that was just some spoof documentary thing about zombies. It was actually really well done, like it’d been filmed in real streets and stuff. The zombies looked a bit crap though, like they’d just stuck some bits of flakey skin onto regular people.

 

There’s someone at the door. It’s half past two in the morning. Why the fuck would there be someone at the door? They’re clattering the letterbox and shouting through. “Brains. Brains. Brains.” Great. That again. It sounds like Anthony though. It’s like totes unprofessional for him to be pissing about when he’s on duty. I pick up my phone and update my status. “Brains through the letterbox. Lol.” And I go to answer the door.

In which I consider Jesus and the Doctor (in a wholly TV/theatre non-blasphemous reviewing sense)

This weekend I experienced two exciting things. Two whole exciting things. The exciting things, one could say, were twofold. Exciting things transpired in an even number of occurrences greater than one but no more than three. The aforementioned two things were as follows:

1. Jesus Christ Superstar at the Manchester Arena

2. Doctor Who

By now all readers should either be mentally singing “Jesus Christ! Superstar! Do you think you’re what they say you are?” or “Dum-de-dum, dum-de-dum, dum-de-dum, durrrrrr,” or some sort of weird mash-up of the two. I hope this is bringing you pleasure. So here are some little reviews of these two exciting things. (If you’ve not seen Doctor Who – The Angels Take Manhattan, be warned – there may be spoilers).

1. Jesus Christ Superstar

So this is one of those big Andrew Lloyd Webber musical productions where they cast the main character by the medium of a tv picking programme. It wsan’t a vintage picking programme. Previous ALW franchises have been super-low budget and high camp BBC productions presented by Graham Norton and replete with timeslot inappropriate smuttiness and extensive taking of the piss out of The Lord (that’s Lord Lloyd Webber, not The actual Lord). The Jesus picking was done on ITV, presented by Amanda Holden, with all the lack of irony and shiny shiny stage sets that that implies.

Anyway, it doesn’t really matter, because the part they were picking a performer for was Jesus, and, despite the title, Jesus ain’t the main character in this show. Judas is. Jesus, in the first half particularly, is a tad whiny and self-involved, and you can kind of see why Judas would want to hand him over to the authorities. Apart from hitting a couple of truly excruciatingly high notes, Jesus mainly just has to wander around looking alternately pretty and then tortured.

Which brings me onto the high points of this production. First up, Tim Minchin as Judas Iscariot. Now I slightly love Tim Minchin – he made it onto my desert island last Christmas, and his was definitely that stand out performance of the show. Yay, yay, and thrice yay to Mr Minchin.

The other, slightly surprising, high point was Chris Moyles as King Herod. Herod only really has one scene and one song, and it’s a funny song, so it’s kind of a tricky role to mess up, but Moyles excelled. The staging of Herod’s court as a TV talk show worked, and Moyles nailed the Jeremy Kyle with a hint of Saturday night vibe perfectly.

My main quibble with the show wasn’t the performances, it was the staging. This show is being presented as an arena tour, which Lloyd Webber insists is consistent with his original artistic intention in writing a rock piece. But actually this show felt like a theatre show transplanted to an arena. The staging was super-traditional proscenium arch style, with hardly any use made of the space available. Because the production adopted a straight stage at the front format, some of the sight lines for the audience at the sides of the venue were terrible. I like the idea of doing a rock musical in a rock venue, but if you do, why waste all that lovely space and flexibility by staging it like a theatre production? Sadly, the staging did let the production down, as it felt slightly like it was neither an intimate theatre show or a big arena extravaganza.

Overall, good idea, some great performances, but a bit more focus needed on the staging and the production really produce Wow moments in a large arena.

 

2. Doctor Who – “The Angels Take Manhattan” (FINAL WARNING – risk of spoilers if you’ve not seen the episode).

Ooooh! Doctor Who! The Weeping Angels (by far the best baddie of the New Who era) are back! River Song (who I want to be when I grow up) is back! Amy and Rory are going! This may all be too much to cope with.

And it was. It was all too much to cope with. I think I started crying when Old Rory died and pretty much didn’t stop until after the picture of Clara/Oswin/Whoever-in-space-and-time-she-turns-out-to-be in the Christmas special preview. This was my favourite sort of Doctor Who episode – small in scale, focussed on the details of the scariness. Rory desperately lighting matches in the cellar, the Doctor running across New York to find the last page, River snapping her own wrist in preference to letting the Doctor down.

And Amy and Rory are gone forever. Or are they? Nothing is really forever in sci-fi, but I hope (although I’m a fan of both characters, especially lovely gentle surprised-by-his-own-heroism Rory) that they don’t make the, apparently increasingly obligatory, end of season reappearances. It’s darker, more interesting, if the Doctor (or indeed any hero character) has some situations, some problems, that they can’t just wave a sonic screwdriver at and resolve before the credits roll.

 

So those were the weekend’s two exciting things. How about you? What exciting things do you have to tell us about?

In which I consider sock puppetry and the pitfalls of online promotion

Firstly, dear reader, an apology. It is, I can’t help but notice, Tuesday. I did promise you that I would deliver you a weekly musing every Monday. I have failed. I prostrate myself before you and implore your forgiveness. Am I forgiven? Jolly good. Let’s all move on.

So, there’s has been a small furore (a furorette?) of late about writerly types massaging and faking their online reviews. Proper successful writers, most notably (but not uniquely) RJ Ellory, have been caught hiding behind anonymous online usernames in order to  big up their own books and slag off rivals in Amazon reviews and online forums.  It also turns out that John Locke’s “How I Sold 1 Million E-books in 5 Months” failed to detail his technique of paying for positive reviews. Ooops. Now clearly neither of those things are really on. But what is on when it comes to online promo? Where, ladies and gents, is the line?

If I hop over to twitter right now, 5 out of the first 15 tweets in my feed are people providing me with links to where I can buy their book, download their book or read a review of their book. And that’s a much lower percentage than it would be at other times of the day. Now clearly a bit of tweeting of links to stuff is fine. If people follow you on twitter I think it’s fair to assume they might be interested in other stuff you’ve written or produced. I’m a guilty party, as I always tweet and facebook the link to this blog when there’s a new post. I think, equally clearly, those people who use social media like twitter for nothing but direct promo are annoying and should expect to be unfollowed pretty quickly. Constant promo is deeply tiresome and makes all the lovely interesting people on twitter disappear off the bottom of your feed before you’ve had chance to see what they’re up to. Having said that, even aggressive and excessive direct twitter promotion is an irritant rather than an act of fraud.

But what about tweeting a link to the amazon page for your book and asking people to post a review? If someone tweets a writer to tell them they’ve enjoyed a book, is it ok to ask them to repeat that view on amazon? What if the reader doesn’t contact the writer directly, but the writer seeks them out and asks for a positive review? What if a reader writes a positive blog review, entirely of their own free will and volition? A review on a tiny personal blog isn’t going to do much to help a writer’s sales – what’s wrong with copying and pasting those positive comments into an amazon review? You’d simply be repeating a reader’s genuine thoughts, albeit under an amazon profile not of their creating.

An underlying issue here is one of markets. For new writers starting out, particularly for independent self-published writers, amazon is the key selling place. Getting books into real world book stores is hard, and there are less and less of them to choose from. Waterstones, WHSmiths and the supermarkets dominate real world book sales and, limited by shelf space, carry a vastly smaller range of titles than online sellers, and in the UK, at present, one online seller dominates them all. The drive to promote your book on amazon, to post good reviews, to boost your search position feels close to irresistible.

In addition to that, one of the big messages that new and aspiring writers hear from every turn at present, is that you must have an online presence. You must promote yourself and your wares. In this bookselling context it’s easy to see how the anonymity of online communications can tempt people to do things they’d never consider in a real world conversation. It’s tricky when talking to someone face to face about your book to nip out of the room, pop back in with a different hat on and pretend to be an enraptured reader of the tome. It’s also quite awkward to stand in front of someone and repeat the phrase “Buy my book. Buy my book. Buy my book” at 3 minute intervals, but online, people don’t always recognise that they’re doing just that and it’s, frankly, a bit creepy-weird.

So maybe that’s the rule – if it would be creepy weird in person, it’s probably creepy weird online. And, unless you’re trying to sell some sort of gothic fantasy horror, creepy weird is probably not the image you’re trying to create. So what do you think? Have you seen any examples of online promo that made you feel a tad discomforted? Do you pay any heed to amazon reviews and blog comments on books? Do you have any other thoughts on any subject at all? Please share…

In which I identify what is news

List number one: the list of things that are (or could be) News

Man bites dog, man bites fruit loaf and finds a mouse inside, man bites fruit loaf and finds a tiny dog inside, income tax rises, Nobel prizes, freak tornadoes in Devizes, the storming of embassies, the expulsion of diplomats, new information on the effects of trans-fats, Afghans killing NATO forces, NATO killing Afghan civilians, “honour” killings, military killings, violent killings, generally killings, revolutions and natural disasters (including those in places a long way from here involving people who do not look like me), industrial actions, warring factions (unless said warring exists only on Twitter, in which case, No), changes in levels of homelessness, changes in levels of joblessness, cuts to legal aid, what expenses MPs get paid, whatever Justice Leveson says, what the Hillsborough Independent Panel already said, international politicians who are suddenly dead, the results of major sporting events, legislation requiring working ladies be treated the same as gents, cases of discrimination, unexpected shifts in the wealth of the nation, leaks of chemicals from power stations, also leaks of radiation, rates of sexual assault conviction, the awarding of major prizes for fiction, suicide bombings, other sorts of bombings, welfare benefit reform, health reform, education reform, and other things which aren’t the norm.

List number two: the list of things that are not, never have been, and never will be news

Kate Middleton’s boobies.

So I hope that’s clear. I’m sure there are lots of other things that are or aren’t news. Please add your own suggestions in the comments. Then we can make a definitive list, send it to news editors across the world and never have to sit through reports on what some people who aren’t important or interesting reckon about some random sleazy photos ever ever again. And thus, the world will be a better place.

In which I consider how David Cameron is really surprisingly bad at politics

Last week saw a cabinet reshuffle at Westminster. Cue lots of twitter jokes about rearranging deckchairs on the Titanic, and lots of Newsnight footage of MPs in varying states on promotion and getting-sackedness. It was a truly amazingly terrible reshuffle, pretty much whatever point of view you look at it from. There are essentially four reasons for reshuffling a cabinet: 1) To make your government look more public-friendly and re-electable; 2) To shore up your leadership with the party faithful 3) You have no choice, because someone high profile quits or; 4) Because you want to announce something truly horrendous on the same day and it’s a handy way of distracting the media.

This reshuffle was in the middle of a paralympics, so I don’t think it was 4). We’ve had a summer absolutely tailormade for burying bad news, so why not save your reshuffle until you really need it? It’s not 3) either. Everyone who’s gone or been demoted appears to have gone unwillingly. So let’s assess the esteemed Mr Cameron’s success on points 1) and 2).

1) To make you government look more public-friendly and re-electable.

Let’s put aside the fact that we didn’t actually entirely elect this government. It’s looking increasingly likely that the next general election will be a good old fashioned two-horse race, the Lib Dems having thrown away the longer electoral war for the short-term “victory” in the Battle of the Coalition Agreement. Given that, if Cameron was looking for a reshuffle that would improve public perception of his government, how’s he done?

Let’s start with the positives. Andrew Lansley, formerly Secretary of State for Health was kicked into the political semi-retirement role of Leader of the House. That’s going to be popular in most circles. The year’s Health & Social Care Bill (on which I had views here) was astronomically unpopular, and the decision to present poorly people with bedside video of his big old head was, entirely inexplicably and unpredictably, met with some derision.

Other positives? No. None at all really. Let’s look at a fairly significant group in the electorate with whom the Conservatives are vulnerable, a full 50% of the population: the Lady-women. Now, astoundingly, despite being ruled by our wombs and prone to fits of fainting and hysteria, women in the UK are permitted to do voting. Historically, going back to the immediate post-war period, women were seen as much more likely to vote Conservative than men. That big gender disparity has largely broken down (as demonstrated in this analysis of the 2005 election polling and result), but Cameron still can’t afford to annoy half the electorate. His “Calm down, dear” comment during PMQs coupled with MPs’ schoolboy responses to comments about Nadine Dorries MP’s “frustration” have rather combined to create an impression of a boys’ club government, slightly confused that not all women around them are solely focused on perfecting their victoria sponge and selecting soft furnishings for the nursery. This was an opportunity to shuffle some women into the cabinet, but actually the number of women has gone down from 5 to 4 and a half (Baroness Warsi is still allowed to attend cabinet but can’t vote – one can only assume her role is to bring the biscuits and sit quietly).

But what about wider electoral issues for men and women? The political orthodoxy in the UK says that you win General Elections by occupying the centre ground. Even the most vilified of right-wing leaders, Margaret Thatcher, was able to present herself, accurately or not, as more middle-ground that the very left-wing Labour Party of the time. Tony Blair brought Labour back into government by steering the party sharply to the right and occupying the centre position left vacant by the Tory’s descent into infighting and obsessive preoccupation with the EU. This reshuffle can only be seen as a shift to the right. The cabinet (and indeed the Tory party’s) highest profile moderate, Ken Clarke, has been dumped from the Minister for Justice post and made Minister Without Portfolio, a position which doesn’t really mean anything very much at all. The architects of many of the most electorally difficult policies (Gove at Education and, of course, Osbourne at the Treasury) have stayed in post.

So, this isn’t a reshuffle to shore up Cameron’s position with the wider electorate. Maybe his focus is on…

 

2) To shore up your leadership with the party faithful

Moving to the right will be popular here. There’s real resentment amongst Tory rank and file at having to pay lip service to funny new fangled Liberal Democrat ideas, so the perception that Cameron is recommitting himself to core Tory values is likely to go down well.

But for these purposes you’ve got to question whether Cameron has gone far enough. More than anything else, this reshuffle looks kind of lame. He’s managed to only half-sack Lansley, Clarke and Warsi, which makes him look like a deeply indecisive and unconfident leader. Does he want them in the cabinet or not? In addition, he tried to get Ian Duncan Smith out of the Department of Work and Pensions, but Duncan Smith was able to leverage his popularity with the party to politely (or not) refuse. There’s no other context in which a boss can try to dismiss you and you get to just go, “Er, no thanks mate, if it’s all the same to you.” The papers, this week, are full of pre-party Conference gossip about stalking horse candidates and a possible return to the Commons for Boris Johnson, something of a perennial thorn in Cameron’s side. This is a time when Cameron needs to look strong as a leader – on the evidence of this reshuffle he just looks a bit meh.

 

There’s other things to be concerned about in this reshuffle too. Realistically, it doesn’t look like there are going to be any major policy changes on the Big News economic stuff. There might be policy shifts in other areas – Transport is the obvious one here, where the vexed issue of London’s airport capacity has shot right to the top of the agenda. But, essentially, the cabinet doesn’t make policy anymore anyway. Including those people, like Ken Clarke and Baroness Warsi, who don’t really know why they’re there, the new cabinet meetings will have 32 attendees. Anyone who’s ever sat through a meeting with more than about 8 people will know that a group of 32 ain’t going to be a well-oiled decision making machine. And this reshuffle underlines the practice of policy being made by a inner circle of PM, Chancellor, their special advisers and possibly a handful of powerful ministers – Michael Gove and Ian Duncan Smith look like the men who’ve come out of this with influence in tact. Accepting that ministers don’t make policy, means that it’s fine to have ministers who know little or nothing about their area of responsibility. The position of Justice Secretary is a case in point. The post was created in 2005 when Tony Blair got rid of the post of Lord Chancellor. Previously the Lord Chancellor had to be drawn from the legal professions. The new post, as with any other cabinet position, was entirely in the gift of the PM. Up until now, all the occupants have been former barristers. Chris Grayling has no legal background or training, but he’s the minister responsible for Britain’s justice system. Knowing about stuff no longer matters, because it’s no longer the role of ministers to make decisions. It’s the role of ministers to appear on Question Time and try not to accidentally say anything controversial or interesting. It all makes me a bit sad really.

Oh and, Jeremy Hunt is the new Health Secretary. Jeremy Hunt supports homeopathy, apparently opposed the NHS tribute in the Olympics opening ceremony, supported the takeover of hospitals in his own constituency by Virgin Care and co-wrote a 2005  pamphlet which recommended healthcare system based on insurance and individuals choosing their own healthcare provider. In 2010, David Cameron claimed that the Tories were “the party of the NHS.” In 1997 Tony Blair promised us that things  could only get better. Reader, they lied.

In which I travel to London Town and view the Paralympics.

Paralympics baby! Cue much whooping and waving of little flags.

Inside the stadium

I’ve just returned home from two days of Paralympic excitement in London Town. There was athletics. There was wheelchair basketball. There was a lot of high-fiving. Here are some things that I learnt.

 

1. Soft toy characters of indeterminate species are like hard drugs to six-year olds

We went to the Games with my nephew, who is six and, like all the best six-year olds, largely focussed on running along stuff, jumping off stuff and playing superheroes. He’s also completely engrossed by the Olympic and Paralympic mascots, Wenlock and Mandeville. And it appears not just to be him, as attested to by the size of the queue outside Mascot House on the Olympic Park – an attraction essentially comprised of many Wenlocks and Mandevilles and culminating in the opportunity to have a picture taken with the real Wenlock. Yup – I said real Wenlock. Any suggestion that Wenlock and Mandeville are not real might be met with crying in some quarters, and that would be a Bad Thing. Never again will I greet the unveiling of Olympic/Paralympic/World Cup/Whatever mascots with scoffing. It turns out the little people are entirely captivated by them. Who knew? Well, parents, probably…

 

2. Being massively overstaffed makes everything run more smoothly.

To those of you with jobs, this might be unexpected news. Most of us who do any sort of, you know, work, will be very used to being told that we must work smarter. That there’s no point just throwing money and people at a problem, that our chronic stress levels and inabilty to complete essential tasks aren’t to do with being woefully underfunded and understaffed. They’re simply representative of our need to improve efficiency. Turns out that may have all been lies.

I was astounded by how smoothly everything ran at the Paralympics. Hardly any queues to get onto the Olympic Park. Hardly any queuing to get into venues. You no sooner had to wonder which way you needed to go now, than a shiny purple games-making volunteer with a big foam pointy finger would appear to foamily point the way. And all the shiny purple volunteers were in high spirits, presumably partly because there were enough of them for them not to be running about the place like crazy people.

There were enough security checks open that you could just walk straight through even when arriving right in the busiest time to attend the evening athletics session. They had enough people directing you to the shortest security queue so that there were no bottlenecks. Most excitingly of all, there were enough toilets. Enough women’s toilets at a major event. No standing watching men walk straight past. It was like a weird vision of a more egalitarian future. Aaaaah…. happy sigh…

 

3. USA are like totally awesome at wheelchair basketball

USA and Mexico warming up

We saw two wheelchair basketball matches and it is a rather cool sport to watch – fast-paced, high scoring, relatively easy to follow for the uninitiated. The only downside was that both the matches featured the USA against slightly less top-notch opposition, which meant that by about 5 minutes into the first quarter it was entirely obvious that America were going to win by an absolute shedload of points.  For a neutral spectator it would have been nice to see a really close match to facilitate a maximum amount of having to go “Ooooh..” and “Aaargghh” and do whooping. Nonethless, it was still marvellous fun and the USA, the men’s team in particular, did provide something of a masterclass in how to do wheelchair basketball. It looked a bit like hard work.

 

4. And finally, I would very much like to move to the Olympic Park

The Olympic Park felt like a weird oasis of happiness and good-heartedness, and I want to stay there forever. I would build a little cottage, probably just by the band stand in the little garden next to the velodrome and I would live there in much contentment for the rest of my days. Seriously, anyone who has a Park Pass and is wondering whether it’s worth going if you don’t have tickets for an actual event, you really really should go before the Games finish. The Park is amazing. It has street performers, and gardens, and places where you can have a go at a wheelchair obstacle course, and people selling waffles and hot pork rolls, and pretty multi-coloured paving, and happy policepeople on horseys, and big screens to sit on the grass and watch the sport. It’s like a magical fairytale land where everyone smiles and things are just a little bit simpler and more primary coloured than out here in the real world. Aaaah… lovely.

 

And that is what I learnt at the Paralympics. I’m super-glad I went and experienced the whole Games vibe, and now it’s time to get back to reality. I’m writing this in my dressing gown, postponing the process of actually having a shower, getting dressed and doing work. So, please keep my happy vibe alive a little bit longer by commenting, and I’ll be back next week talking about something else probably.

In which I go to the library, and behold its great and wondersome shininess. Aaaaah…

Worcester's shiny shiny library

So the magical city of Worcester (note: not actually magical) has a new library. It is called The Hive, and nobody really knows why. It’s very exciting. The reasons it is exciting are twofold. Firstly, it’s a combined University and City library and therefore is a bit massive and has space for ALL the books. If you’re thinking that no library could really have space for all the books, you’re wrong, and need, urgently to get your Pratchett on and learn about l-space. Secondly, the new library is exciting because it is GOLD! Altogether now….

The goldness is particularly exciting because it means that we have a new building that isn’t a glass box. Now some people aren’t fond of the gold. They think it looks a bit weird. Those people are, of course, entirely correct, but I love it. Weird is always better than bland. It’s why I very much like the Selfridges building at the end of Birmingham’s Bullring too. It’s silvery blue and looks like the shopping centre has a big lovely derriere.

Anyhoo, we were talking about the library. I say it’s new. It opened in July. The Queen came and opened it. Actually it was already open then. Queenie “officially” opened it. She didn’t turn up with a big bunch of keys and the code for the alarm system. She just wandered into a building that was already open and pulled back a little curtain on a plaque which said the building was opened by the Queen, which, I think we’ve clearly established, is technically lies. Thinking about it, it was even more of a lie when it was engraved, because the Queen hadn’t even turned up then. Probably the plaque should read, “possibly opened by the Queen, but maybe not. She might cancel with a nasty head cold. Anything could happen. It’s really too soon to say.” But that would probably need a bigger plaque.

Anyhoo, again, the point is I went to Worcester’s shiny shiny new library, and it’s really rather good. It’s like being back at University with all the books and little corners to sit and read and the many many computers which you can log into with your library card or, if you have one, with your University ID. It makes you feel like, with a bit of ingenuity, you could basically make up your own self-study degree programme, and maintain the pretense of still being 19 without the nasty tuition fees. And, because it’s all new, there are modern red sofas with individual overhead lights right out in the middle of the floor where you can walk by them and think “Oooh, red sofas, nice.” And then, further back in the darker corners, there are plain grey chairs and sofas, because it is still a council building after all, and you can’t go frittering public money on red sofas just willy-nilly.

The whole place is a bit of a gift to lazy procrastinating writers and wannabe eternal students like myself, and visiting it has led to a new plan. Novel no 2, which entered hard drafting mode last week, is, I think, going to be written at the library. On writing days I shall pack myself up a little bag with paper and pens and a bottle of water and leave the house like a proper grown-up with a proper job. I shall walk to the library, find a corner (probably a dark corner with a plain grey chair) and I shall write my words. Then I shall walk home again.

This plan has advantages. Again, they are twofold. Firstly, it adds a short walk into my routine, which, hopefuly, will contribute to the ongoing battle against my expanding writer’s bottom. I was going to type “running battle” there, but if I did running the writer’s bottom probably wouldn’t be a problem. Secondly, it moves me away from the home with all its various aids to procrastination, so I might actually manage to write something. I don’t see how I could possibly be led to procrastinate in the big room with ALL the books. Hmmm…

So in summary: libraries are good; big gold libraries are better; and plaques that say the Queen opened something are not to be taken at face value. That is all. Come back next week, when I’ll probably be talking in more detail about the whole diet/weightloss/writer’s bottom issue. Although I might not. I’ll probably become distracted and talk about something else entirely. As ever, please follow if you like what you read. And please comment if you have an interesting thought. If you’re Worcester-local what do you think of The Hive? If you’re not from these parts, then please just chat about libraries, or Queens, or writing locations, or gold things, or anything really.

In which I think about how problematic it can be when the news is complicated

Julian Assange, Mr Wikileaks, is currently holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, guarded by the massed ranks of Ecuador’s diplomatic mission to the UK, the Metropolitan Police, and some protestors, who may be related to Occupy London, but may not. This is just the sort of thing I feel I probably ought to have an opinion on. Generally I can generate an opinion on most things. I think that banning smoking in public buildings was a Good Thing. I think that the Health Reform Bill was a Bad Thing. I think that wearing black with navy makes you look like a bruise. See – I’m a barely controlled fountain of random thoughts and attitudes.

But on Mr Assange’s current predicament I’m struggling. I think I think he probably should be extradited to Sweden. As countries go, there are plenty of places with less transparent judicial systems, and the Swedish courts and prosecution service (after long deliberation) have decided there are sufficient grounds to issue a European Arrest Warrant to seek Assange’s extradition on sexual assault charges. I don’t think that access to money and high profile supporters should make answering potentially serious criminal charges optional. I do think that sexual assault and rape are globally massively under-reported and under-prosecuted. I do think there are two women in Sweden who have effectively been tried by Assange’s supporters and found guilty without getting their own day in court. I do think that all of that feels very wrong.

But then, what if that’s horribly naive of me? What if Assange and his supporters are right, and the assault allegations are nothing more than a smokescreen to ease Assange’s later extradition to the USA? America is famously hardcore about pursuing perceived threats to her national interests.  We’re talking about a country that did a whole invasion, apparently because the President was cross that when his Daddy was President the job got left unfinished. We’re talking about the country that has already massively overreacted to WikiLeaks’ publication of confidential diplomatic communications (a publication that you can argue was more embarrassing than actually damaging –  the bulk of the material was little more than embassy gossip.) The US already has the alleged source of the diplomatic cable leaks, Bradley Manning, in custody, and WikiLeaks has found that the number of companies prepared to provide technological or financial infrastructure has suddenly, and markedly, dwindled. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the US would go to extreme lengths to get Assange onto US soil.

But then, why wouldn’t they have just applied to extradite him from the UK themselves? Why go to the trouble of having him sent to Sweden first? The UK has an extradition treaty with the US. The British government has been criticised in recent years for being too willing to co-operate with US extradition requests, notably in the case of Gary McKinnon. And why run for the Ecuadorean embassy when Ecuador also has a valid extradition treaty with the US?

And Ecuador have decided that there are sufficient grounds to grant Assange asylum. Presumably they’ve considered the situation more carefully than just watching a bit of News 24 and reading about it on Twitter. Ecuador are in the process of negotiating a new trade agreement with Europe, so you would think that it wouldn’t be a time to antagonise the UK and Sweden if they could avoid it. The apparent threat by the UK to enter the Ecuadorean embassy also seems disproportionate, but did they actually threaten to do that? The text of the letter in question is here. It’s strongly worded but is it a direct threat? I don’t know. Maybe in the opaque world of diplomatic communication it is.

And Sweden won’t guarantee not to extradite Assange onwards to the US. Maybe they should  promise that, but then again, they probably can’t. The don’t have Assange on Swedish soil, and the USA hasn’t initiated extradition proceedings, so how can they make promises about how they’d behave in a set of circumstances that haven’t yet occurred? Sweden have also been reluctant to consider questioning Assange at the Ecuadorean embassy, on the grounds that this is just another criminal case. In their view there is no reason for special treatment.

The problem here is that there are too many things that I don’t quite understand, and despite the massive amount of media coverage of the Assange case, there’s not a lot of light being cast on these questions by the press. You can find second by second updates on who’s outside the embassy now, what the Foreign Office is saying, what Assange is saying, what the protesters outside are saying, what the Ecuadorean government are saying, but it’s much harder to find in depth analysis of Assange’s claims that he’s the victim of a witchhunt, or consideration of the past record of the nations involved on extradition and human rights.

So should Assange be extradited to Sweden? It’s complicated, but yes. I think so. Probably, because without clear hard evidence that he should be treated as a special case, there’s no justification to do so. Justice has to be blind and has to be applied evenly. Not facing sexual assault charges because you’ve upset the American government is unfair. Not facing sexual assault charges because you’ve become a cause celebre is also unfair. I think, but it’s entirely possible that today I might be wrong.