Camping with Wolves - the book!

I am delighted to announce that my book - Camping with Wolves has now been printed. There are however some errors but I have distributed some copies to reviewers and I hope to post their reviews shortly.

Details of book launch, where you can buy your copy and all sorts of other exciting literary stuff will appear on this blog ASAP in the meantime...................here is the cover

Laurie Lee - Features in The Oldie competiton

A rather eccentric publication 'The Oldie' magazine recently ran a poetry competiton - all lines had to rhyme with 'Slad'

Philip Brown was amongst the winners with this:

Laurie Lee, who came from Slad
Set out one morning, when a lad,
With violin (though not a Strad)
Some silver to the coins he had

The village life was strictly Trad.
He wrote about his absent Dad,
The festivals that made them glad,
Cider with Rosie (just a fad),
And poor Miss Flynn, so nearly mad,
Who told his mother, 'I've been had,
Mrs Er... Things made me sad'
The milkman found her where, unclad,
She'd drowned beneath a lily pad.

Just goes to show you can't keep a good author down.

Local Street Art

Really can be interesting stuff.........I will share more thoughts on this with you soon.

Happy New Year Everyone

Whilst I track down my publisher to ascertain the progress on my (long awaited) book, I thought I would update you on my Christmas festivities and some other random thoughts:

After singing weird carols, badly I ended up with a troubled conscience. Was I losing my religion? Was my hippy idolism of Jesus the original preacher of love falling apart? All that long hair and sandals and walking on water - was I turning into a Judas when the blasted carols seriously got on my nerves or when I agreed with Muslim flatmate that all world religions are based on the same thing like fear? What a mix up in my mind! Maybe this is why I am so pathologically superstitious?

But over to Richard Dawkins who says 'The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic homophobic, racist, infanticide, genocide, filicidal, pestilential, megalomania cal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.'

Bjork says, 'The Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren't lesser beings, they're just like us. So I say f*** the Buddhists.'

Frank Zappa says, 'To hand all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you've been bad or good - and care about any of it - is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.'

Of course, what is really interesting is that the UK's oldest duck, Edwina, has died at the age of 22.

Have you ever been sacked? Tom Binns, a DJ of BRMB radio interrupted HM's Christmas speech by accidentally switching its feed and putting on a Wham! Song instead, saying, 'From one Queen to another'. He was sacked. Shame. Seems to me he should have got a pay rise.

On 'hidden treasure' - tomorrow’s theme:

Not everyone gets to measure
The full extent of pure pleasure
Some are content
With that heaven-sent
Moment of real hidden treasure

Merry Christmas...

Hemingway - Fellini - Bob Dylan

I prefer Hemingway’s 'Death in the Afternoon' even though the style of writing seems all old-fashioned today. At least it gives some insight into bullfighting - not that I like any of it. There is a scene in Fellini's film 'Spiriti dephi' that explains how the bullfighter creates the illusion with his cape and this magic is the killer of the animal. The Fellini is worth watching just because of the hats...

Zesting ahead relentlessly, here is what happened after Meike looked up Bob Dylan’s agent address. (See earlier posts if confused)

I wrote to them at the 'Creative Artists Agency, Agent for Bob Dylan, 2000 Ave. Of The Stars (no kidding), L.A., Ca 90067, USA', asking for the copy of CWW to be passed on to Bob. A few days later, they phoned me asking for my address. Just hearing the American girl voice pronouncing Yetholm like yeatholme almost brought on a fit of the giggles as I was sitting in the dark little cottage in the Borders. Then the doubts set in: could I already see large plants moving about in the dusky garden? Were secret agents creeping around the undergrowth to figure out if I was a terrorist or some madwoman stalking old superstars? I almost wished I had never started this. Then the postman brought the book back with a letter from the CAA, saying they had 'examined it' but couldn't deal with 'unsolicited submissions'. Pi**sed off, I re-sent the book to them, saying it was not intended as a 'submission for something to someone. It is intended as a personal gift for Bob Dylan. As you have examined the contents (i.e. it does not contain explosives) might you now kindly pass it on to Mr. Bob Dylan?

Well, they replied, I'll bring the letter along on wed, saying 'No' again. Apart from the book, I had put a wee note for our man Bob that runs like this:

Dear Bob,
Just a bit of fan mail, that's all.
Forget about the 'all fictitious characters' bla. No names have been changed 'cos this story is absolutely true.
But over to you. When the young girl cop caught you 'acting suspiciously' last week, what were you really up to?
I'm a crap emailer.
Praps post me a message
on the sole
of a broken shoe

love and respect
to gorgeous old you

PS Fancy meeting in Iceland  (the country, not the shop) sometime?

This went off on 30.08.09 with my mobile number, but of course, he never got it. Bummer! Especially 'cos I'd already run off to buy fab new underwear and even a new leather jacket. Ah well.

When I got another letter, returning the book Again from the CAA - they handily paid for all the postage so that was nice - I felt knocked back to the core, changed the leather for a warm granny cardigan and shot off to Spain.

Somebody told me Bob is on Facebook, but seeing I have yet to figure out how to get into that, let alone the blog of camping, I'll zest back home just now where we've had a major flood in the hallway. Ah, Life!
Ciao for now, H.

Promise more about the book VERY SOON!

Southern Reporter - Headlines

Hey I made the newspaper:

Please click here for more

Cool!!