Reading so you don’t have to

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Best Beloved is determined that I will one day write a bonkbuster filled with politics, diplomacy and intrigue and sex. She will feed me snippets gleaned from her time as an au pair to a diplomatic family in Saudi, where the shenanigans and goings-on would not meet with approval of the mutaween (which is a pretty good reason for doing anything) and we will retire on the proceeds.
Therefore, strictly for research, I must report that the next title on my reading list is Edwina Currie’s A Parliamentary Affair. There, I said it. A report may or may not be following. Likewise the proposed bonkbuster.
Now off for a week for our annual Sweden pilgrimage where Internet connectivity will almost certainly not be forthcoming. To fill the void in your lives, here are some things you probably didn’t know about me. Why not look yourself up too? You may be pleasantly surprised.

TEN TOP TRIVIA TIPS ABOUT BEN JEAPES!

  1. The Church of Scientology was founded in 1953, at Washington D.C., by Ben Jeapes.
  2. Ben Jeapesology is the study of Ben Jeapes.
  3. Ben Jeapes can eat up to four kilograms of insects in a single night.
  4. Julius Caesar wore a laurel wreath to cover up Ben Jeapes.
  5. Ben Jeapes can squeeze his entire body through a hole the size of his beak.
  6. Ben Jeapes can smell some things up to six miles away.
  7. A sixteenth century mathematician lost his nose in a duel over his love for Ben Jeapes, and wore a silver replacement for the rest of his life.
  8. The Vikings believed that the Northern lights were caused by Ben Jeapes as he rode out to collect warriors slain in battle.
  9. The number one cause of blindness in the United States is Ben Jeapes!
  10. Japan provides over thirty percent of the world’s Ben Jeapes supply.
I am interested in  – do tell me about

Ancient and modern

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Ancient: this nineteenth century writing desk brought back from my grandmother’s flat yesterday, already lightly encrusted with clutter. “French mahogany secretaire a abattant with boxwood outline panels” …

and “… satinwood veneered interior with an arrangement of six drawers”.


It replaces a much more modern G-plan writing desk, so while we’ve probably traded down in terms of storage capacity we’ve traded way up in style. It now looms over to one side of our room like a TARDIS with a slightly iffy camouflage circuit. If it was a TARDIS then we could have just landed it, rather than have to manipulate it up a flight of stairs slightly narrower than it is with two right angled bends. A good family bonding exercise, not least for Bonusbarn who was squished against the wall on a couple of occasions but took it like a man.

Modern: later the same day, an Oxfringe do at Borders in Oxford on Reading & Writing Sf and Fantasy. A panel of three – Juliet McKenna, Chaz Brenchley and yours truly – talked about what we like to read and write, while an audience of 11 – so at least outnumbering the panel, always a good thing – listened with rapt attention. So, nice people happy to let me talk about myself for a lot. I could get used to that. As Juliet put it in her email inviting me to attend, it was:

“Essentially, a panel discussion of the kind we’re all so used to via the convention circuit and which so many bookshops/libraries regard with awe akin to someone splitting the atom in their back bedroom.”

Well, quite. Let’s hope they don’t catch on. Mark Chadbourn was meant to attend but couldn’t, which sadly meant I was unable to tell him I read his novel Jack of Ravens on honeymoon and still turned in my review of it on time (the five hour round trip to the Scillies did help). The review was only mostly complimentary, but he’s a pro and I’m sure he could have taken it.

Laptop dancing

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This is a bonding exercise with my stepson. We’re sitting about five feet apart in the living room tapping away on our laptops. And I’m doing it wirelessly.

His is/was a pretty decent nearish state of the art 16th birthday present. Mine is a retired company laptop with a small crack in the lid bound together by brown parcel tape (which I removed to see exactly that it was meant to be holding together). This is mostly an exercise to acquaint myself with the keyboard and layout. It’s pretty good for writing on. Better than the desktop ornament, anyway. I’m pretty certain Best Beloved is on the main machine in our room as I write this. We have finally achieved the goal of all twenty first century families, each of us being on his or her own separate computer and not talking to anyone else.

When the firm announced one of its periodic purges of no longer maintained equipment, I put myself down for a laptop on the offchance. I thought I could do with a typewriter to replace my 10-year-old, much loved but essentially defunct IBM Thinkpad (which I bought with money received for His Majesty’s Starship. A true writer’s laptop.). This came with hard disk wiped and a copy of Windows XP – nothing else. Then Bonusbarn pointed out we have some wireless adapters knocking around and I thought why not?

And so, apropos of nothing, I thought I would share my thoughts on the saga of our Home Secretary and her avant garde art movie loving husband. First off, it’s pretty clear what happened. She gets phone, TV and everything as a package from a single firm, as do we. She gets a monthly bill stating everything, as do we. It runs to several pages but that’s just the way it’s laid out. The bill includes movies watched. So far the biggest surprise we’ve had is that Bonusbarn watched Pulp Fiction at 2 in the morning over halfterm (we’ve since tightened up the parental controls). Ms Smith must wish she shared the experience. Anyway, she’s a busy women. She can’t remember the last time she manually went through the phone bill. She Has People Who Do That. She threw the pile of paper at a People and said “that’s the bill, deal with it.” And sadly they did.

What absolutely no one seems to be obsessing on is that somewhere in the House of Commons is a mole leaking paperwork like this to the papers. That is a disgrace and this person must be hunted down and destroyed. Though it’s probably not a priority in the House of Speaker Martin, where the historic privileges of our elected representatives that were literally won in blood are secondary to who gets to wear the nice robes.

Also worrying is that the national domestic budget is in the hands of a woman who can’t check her phone bill. Not even to weed out the business calls. I’m sure she racks up a hefty phone bill in the course of her duties, and naturally it should be claimed as an expense, but I can’t believe every single call was work-related. Or maybe she just makes domestic calls from her sister’s flat.

I would have liked to call this post “the porn ultimatum” but sadly the Sun got there first. I don’t often say this to the Sun, but, nice one.