When I emigrated to Australia with my partner and two young children, I had in mind that we would give it two years before taking stock. Back then, the idea of two years away from home didn’t seem like a big deal simply because it felt bonkers, unreal. I went along with it
as if I were a character in a novel about a family emigrating.
That character was the mother of two half-Aussies, who joked about making them take elocution lessons rather than develop an accent; she was a born-and-bred Londoner who could never understand why people moaned about the place so much; she liked rain and was slightly too curmudgeonly for her age. She was a Brit; she was an author; a British author.
It was such a new experience, being an alien; both thrilling and terrifying. On my blog I talked about being mocked for wearing Ugg boots outside, for not knowing what a rashie is, or for being an anti-social Victoria Meldrew compared to my Ramsey Street neighbours. All good fun. What I neglected to share were the darker times; the times I’ve stood in the park, tears streaming down behind my sunglasses as I observed other mums so at ease with each other and feared I would never find a real friend; or the weeks around Christmas when I was so depressed to be away from home I could barely get out of bed and function properly (the famous Brit stiff-upper-lip has come in handy on many occasions).


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With Peter Hall directing, this entertaining tranfer from Kingston Rose Theatre was slick but not quite settled in on the night I attended. The younger couples seem a tad dated, the silly newly-weds like the Catherine Tate couple who laugh like drains when they get out of the lift at the wrong floor. Kate (Finty Williams) is bouncy and Nick (Tony Gardener) not quite hapless enough.Slipped-disc Malcolm (Daniel Betts) does a great slow-motion fall out of bed when he drops his book, and Jan (Sara Crowe) deftly portrays the wife whose patience is wearing thin.

My favourites, then as now, are parents Delia (Jenny Seagrove) and Ernest (David Horovitch) the actors as comfortable on stage as they are with their stereotype middle class marriage, mildly amused that eating pilchards in bed makes it 'smell like a fishing boat.'



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The Strictly Writing Award

Cash prize for the winning story.

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The new Ultimate Fantasies sequence (Orion) gave me a good excuse to explore the Golden Age of Fantasy. Some of these titles I had already read – albeit as a boy – and others I had come to by proxy, as in the case of Conan, familiar with the character through comic books and film. There is, of course, the Fantasy Masterworks Series, which includes these eight volumes in the Ultimate Fantasies sequence. Nevertheless, arranged chronologically, the Ultimate Fantasies sequence presents an excellent overview of the genre and a basic map of its evolution.


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The new Ultimate Fantasies sequence (Orion) gave me a good excuse to explore the Golden Age of Fantasy. Some of these titles I had already read – albeit as a boy – and others I had come to by proxy, as in the case of Conan, familiar with the character through comic books and film. There is, of course, the Fantasy Masterworks Series, which includes these eight volumes in the Ultimate Fantasies sequence. Nevertheless, arranged chronologically, the Ultimate Fantasies sequence presents an excellent overview of the genre and a basic map of its evolution.

My delight at a pole position seat opposite Hanif Kureishi was spoiled by noise from behind – three thirty-something men exchanging banter with various well-wishers. No wonder they were over-excited –they were three of the six short-listed contenders for the £25,000 prize for the best short story in the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award. The ‘talk’ was in fact a discussion chaired by Cathy Galvin, editor of The Sunday Times Magazine.


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I’ve been trying to think of a good metaphor for the strange journey I’ve had as an editor starting to write; for the process of moving from teacher to pupil; from feeling like I know all about my subject to knowing I know nothing.

Unsurprisingly, I binned my first, oh, 20 or 25 ideas.

Then I hit on it. Imagine a midwife who’s spent her life delivering babies, who understands babies and mothers almost better than she understands herself, who plays her part in the birth, but is only ever behind the scenes.

She gets pregnant. Everyone she knows trills, ‘Oh, you’ll be alright! This must be a walk in the park for you, lucky thing.’ She nods and smiles, digging her nails into her palms. She knows she ought to be the best mum in the world, but inside she’s so terrified of getting it wrong that she’s suddenly paralysed about the simplest of decisions. Home birth or hospital? Disposable nappies or organic palm-fibre pants? Pink or Blue? She gets to the point where people asking her about the baby makes her heart lurch.

Because everything’s different when it’s your baby.


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I started writing something new yesterday. It wasn't what I intended to write yesterday. It was the start of a novel I was excited about writing, oh, about three years ago. What I wrote (1,000 word opening scene) wasn't in the style I would have chosen, three years ago. It was better. It might even be pretty good. Am I excited about it, however? No. Instead I am vaguely anxious about continuing with it, even opening the word document and looking at what I wrote yesterday. I feel as if my equilibirum has been unsettled. Threatened.

This isn't what I planned to write, when I was able to return to writing full-time. I had a plan, for goodness sake! I had notes - reams and reams of notes - character studies and character arcs. I knew where I was headed with it. This new thing? The cuckoo in my writer's nest? (Or is it a stork?) I have next to nothing. A one-page synopsis I wrote three years ago, to structure the story in my mind. No character studies. No plot, as such. No notes!! Just this threatening... itch. This idea that I could write this and it could be good, better than what I had planned.

Trouble with an itch? You scratch it, it might go away. Or flare up into something horrid.

Shouldn't I be wildly excited about writing something new? Isn't that a vital ingredient? Or, at least, hug-myself-in-secret excited?


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Bristol is a really great city for things writing-related. First, you have SEVEN hours to get your entry in for this year's Bristol Short Story prize - deadline midnight tonight, UK time (British Summer Time, we just turned the clocks forward). Stories 3000 words maximum or much shorter (wow us in 1000 words, or even 300). Anonymously judged, of course. Open to any writer anywhere in the world!

To entice you, the prizes are....

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