IÕll be taking a two week interlude on my blog as IÕm flying up to Glasgow...

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Well, would you believe I logged on to the interweb to do a post about some of the things people are searching for when they stumble on my blogs, and discovered that Sarah Johnson of Reading the Past has been quicker off the mark! But anyway, here are my own favourites from the last month or so. We begin with the nonsensical...

ancient rhinos in rance

Then there’s the faintly unnerving...

men in high heels
big old ladies getting it on...



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When I was thirteen my father shouted when he found out about my Japanese pen-friend. It wasn’t hard to spot the airmail envelope among the bills, not to mention a small box of carved figures. My parents had shown indifference at letters from France, but poor Akio’s photo was consigned to the back of the door of the outside loo.

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Have you ever thought - I mean really thought – what it must have been like writing, years and years ago? First things first, you wouldn’t have had a computer. Try writing several short stories or a novel in longhand, by candlelight– the ink stains, the strained eyes, the writer’s elbow, bent over a desk, minus a back-friendly, especially designed chair. Even with a typewriter, imagine retyping or crossing out before the dawn of Tippex? Then you’d be faced with sending off your one and only precious copy – or, if the photocopier was invented, stumbling into town and handing your manuscript over, amidst your blushes, explaining to the man who knows everyone in the village that yes, you do fancy yourself as a writer.That’s the great thing about the computer, you see - the anonymity. No one else need know. You can print out your baby, post it and wait for the rejection slip without having told a soul. Previous to that, the best plan for discretion would have been a pseudonym.



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I went to see the film Defiance last night, which is excellent, I found it very moving. I find most Holocaust-themed works moving, very personal. It's most definitely worth seeing. But before that I sat in the cinema's cafe, having something to eat, and was struck by a kind of revelation which is both quite upsetting and also makes so much sense. I will try and describe it:

I emigrated to Israel from England in 1994. I was 24, had just finished university (including two graduate degrees). I wasn't someone who had grown up in a Jewish family that was very attached to Israel; we were secular, not that interested. But I came here during the summer of 1993 and knew when I touched down that I wanted to move here. It felt like a kind of calling, a gut feeling.

Why? I couldn't have told you at the time, couldn't have explained it. But looking back, I was searching for something, a sense of community, a belonging that I didn't feel in London. And I found it here. For years I was thrilled every morning waking up in Jerusalem. I learned the language quickly, I found work as a science and technology journalist, and I loved my job. I went around the country and interviewed entrepreneurs who had set up little technology start-ups, amazing technologies, excited interviewees who were delighted to speak to me. It was fun! And I was good at it, I loved being freelance, I learned how to make contacts, to get my articles in magazines around the world.

But. But.

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I’d been woken the first time by the leaping around of the dog like an Irish dancer burling to the relentless tattoo of the window cleaner knocking at the front door. The second time by snuffing a fat brown moth up my right nostril. And now by the demented cricket-like metallic chirping from Roo’s alarm clock.


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Well, I finally found myself clicking into the novel this evening and working on it! I’m at the stage of reorganising the first three chapters and have been cutting, pasting and moving sections and paragraphs around. By golly I think I’ve got it – so I’ll be able to move on, cut/pad and write to the end.


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They looked more like mountaineers than pensioners, and certainly weren't going to let age get in the way of making a sartorial statement.


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When I was five I went through my 'Watership Down' phase and wanted to be a rabbit when I grew up. Specifically, Hazel. Hazel was my hero: courageous, resourceful (maybe I had a tiny crush on him, I don't know). To her credit, my mother did nothing to disourage me.

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We like to pretend we’re just like anyone else. Nothing strange about us.
Oh no. Trouble is, there are all those odd little foibles and habits…

1. When you hear about terrible tragedies on the news, there’s a tiny and very shameful part of you that’s thinking it would make a great story.
2. You long to have proper time to write, free from the distractions of work and life and family, but when you do finally grab some, you fritter half of it away by looking at websites and chat rooms and, um, blogs like this.
3. Your characters may be strolling around inside your own head, but that doesn’t mean they’re not living, breathing people. And when you have to finish a project, you feel a sense of real loss that you won’t be hanging out with them anymore.
4. The entire world can shrink to the size of your email inbox or your letterbox when you’re waiting for news on a writing project. Even though you’re driving yourself mad with the constant checking, you can’t seem to stop doing it. This has an added layer for the published, who have a condition known as OARCD. This stands for Obsessive Amazon Ranking Checking Disorder. There is currently no cure.

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