News, extract
| Possums,
STOP PRESS On Tuesday 24th November this was the Canal Cruising boatyard in Stone. While we were at home an electrical fire had started in the boat next door to the Phyllis May.
This is the interior of the Phyllis May the next morning.
All her bright golden hair We bought Phyllis May II on Saturday 28th November.
Signed copies of Indian River hardback Everyone seems to love a signed copy of my books, putting a value on my signature that I find flattering. They sometimes come up to us and say I have a copy at home but I really want a signed one so we give them a signed post-card of a book cover to use as a bookmark. But my point is – What is your point, what is your point – that we are running a little experiment. If you live in the UK and want a signed copy for yourself or someone for Xmas send us £15 (cover price and a penny for scratchings for Jim) and the address to send it to and the message you want written inside and I will send a signed copy of the Indian River hardback and pay the postage and packing. This is our address – 7, Oulton Road, Stone, Staffordshire, ST15 8EB. Our Autumn We spent much of the autumn travelling round in boat and train and car, running a stall at the Inland Waterways Association festival and giving talks from Earl’s Court to Ilkley. Monica gives the talks and sometimes I come along to support the star. Now and then Jim and Jess are with us – they went down a storm in the main hall of a public school in Kirkham. All great fun and we probably broke even over the season with the petrol and diesel and met hundreds and hundreds of fans and saw some lovely places. As we boated through the Midlands so many people seemed to know us. I suppose it is the Waterworld TV series years ago and a lot of books have been bought and many others passed around or borrowed. The more dirty and menacing the boater the more likely he was to say Loved your book as I backed away behind the lock gear. Are you Tits Magee? A lady shouted into a lock. Have you got your shorts on the right way round? yelled another. To be honest we loved it. Interesting to read an article by the actor Timothy West (he is a boater too) saying he likes to be recognised. Being recognised must be a full-time occupation for him on the canal – I mean everyone knows Timothy West! When we got back and settled in Number Seven we had a backlog of fan mail we have only just cleared. Since we started this writing lark we have had two thousand letters, from all over the world. We have answered them all apart from the chap who wrote to say Carcassonne was terrible. I suppose I could have written and said No it isn’t, but then he would have written back and said Yes it is, and the correspondence would have continued until death released one of us, and who is to say who is right? Most fans say Where is the next book and I explain that I am now starting to look for a publisher for Narrow Dog to Loch Ness (you remember my old publisher did not want a novel by one of their travel writers.) I will keep you posted and if I do not find a publisher I will publish the bloody thing myself and sell it off this site. There is nothing the matter with Loch Ness– it is just that I have ventured outside my genre – when I think of it I have spent my life venturing outside my genre. Jess Sometimes we go away, we said, and Jim has to stay in kennels and it breaks our hearts, though they are very good kennels. We shall get him a little friend and then he will not be lonely. I rang the Lady Who Knows a Lot About Whippets (there is a whippet universe, peopled by people who have whippets – it is like the real world, but has more whippets in it and people in it who care about nothing else). Tiny paws, I said, little maggots, little blunt-nosed darlings, all wriggly. You are a very foolish man, said the Lady Who Knows. Breeding puppies requires experience, intelligence, and appplication. If you have a bitch who is not neutered there will be mayhem half the time, because whippets have passions we cannot begin to comprehend. And anyway Jim is getting on – he probably won’t know what to do and will fail and all will be confusion and despair. Of course he won’t fail, I said. He’s my Jim, he’s a man’s dog, a manly dog. My word yes, no problemmo in that department – don’t you worry about that one. He will fail, he will, said the Lady. He is seven –too old – not enough experience – confusion and despair and broken furniture. We rang J R Whippet Rescue. * The brown brindled bitch was an inch taller than Jim, with a white muzzle and white paws and a white flash on her chest. She was too shy to look at you. There you are, Jim, I said, a little chum. Now you need never be lonely. Jess looked at Jim pathetically and he walked away. Then he turned round gave us the betrayed eyes. That was three years ago and Jim is beginning to accept his new friend. In fact now and then he licks her behind the ears and then they set out on a chase and a dance all over the furniture, giving the ghost of an idea of the mayhem we have been spared thanks to the Lady Who Knows.
Out-takes Usually there is a jolly good reason why out-takes don’t make it into the final version. Like the original start of The Wicker Man – the usual version which goes straight to Edward Woodward’s little white seaplane is much better. But the out-takes from Love Actually with Frances de la Tour are worth all the rest of the film. These out-takes from Carcassonne are more Edward than Frances but Monica won’t let me put in the story about what Jim and Jess did one day in case the law heard about it.
Grandchildren We have seven grandchildren. They are very nice grandchildren and I have no complaints, though I have never quite understood why they are not cloned direct from me, cutting out the middleman. I mean some of them don’t even look like me. Most of them are too young to write a poem but if one of them did it might be a little thing that goes something like this – My Grandad is followed everywhere By a thing with teeth and not much hair He calls it his DOG. My Grandad has upon his face A sort of fuzz-it’s a disgrace He calls it his BEARD My Grandad will quite often shout At someone bossing him about He calls her his WIFE My Grandad goes off down the street To where he and his cronies meet He calls it his PUB My Grandad hides up in the roof And says he’s checking out a proof He calls it his STUDIO My Grandad has a big fat hug And holds me like a sleepy bug He calls me his DARLING And big fat hugs to you too and cheers and the Merriest of Christmases and the happiest of New Years from Tits Magee in red satin, and Gulfstream and Jim and Jess and Kilroy the eft in his jar and Leroy the armadillo
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