Martin Millar - blog

The Rezillos - Johnny Rotten - Gary Glitter

2011-12-20T15:02:00.001Z

On this day, 20th December, 1980, I went to see Gary Glitter play at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, London. Gary Glitter was then making a successful comeback. He'd faded after his halcyon glam rock days, but a few years later, his young glam fans were punk rockers, and he was popular again.

As far as I remember, the Gary Glitter show was very entertaining. He certainly got a good reception. (Gary Glitter's later crimes and troubles are very well documented and you can read about them in plenty of places so I'm not going to add anything.) However my most striking memory of the night - as I'm sure I've written about already - but what is a little repetition between friends - is of seeing Sex Pistols singer Johnny Rotten, or John Lyden as he later became, in the audience. As Johnny Rotten walked down the aisle he was grabbed in a loving embrace by an absolutely massive skinhead in a sheepskin coat. The enormous skinhead held him in a star-struck, lover's embrace while the Sex Pistol stood there, unable to move for some time, looking slightly embarrassed in the grasp of his adoring fan.

The support band on the night were the Revillos, from Edinburgh. I was a fan of theirs, and a fan of their earlier incarnation, the Rezillos. I saw the Rezillos at the Vortex Club in 1977 and they were very entertaining. They weren't exactly a punk band but they fitted in well at the time.

I think I went to that gig on my own, which I did used to do, on occasion, in those days. That was OK, though no doubt I'd have preferred to have some girlfriend to have gone with.

The Vortex was a small club. At some point a member of the audience threw a pint of beer over the band. They stopped playing while the singer, Eugene Reynolds, berated the audience, on safety grounds. That was reasonable enough, as the tiny stage was covered in a jumble of electrical leads.

A few years later, supporting Gary Glitter, the Revillos were really good, but right before they were due to play their encore there was a bomb scare. Everyone had to troop out of the venue and hang around in the cold street outside for ages. We were let back in eventually but I don't think the Revillos got to play their encore, which was a shame for them, as they'd deserved it.

Four New Buffy Comics

2011-10-18T23:45:00.001+01:00

Two Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics and two Faith and Angel comics to be precise. It's the new season nine, still overseen by Joss Whedon. I get these on subscription from Reed Comics, who do very good service for me in Buffy comics.

I'm unable to resist buying any new Buffy the Vampire Slayer produce, though I did say that I didn't love the last season of comics. I've never really enjoyed having hundreds of slayers running around, in a global organisation. It's a long way from the intimacy of Sunnydale. And I didn't like what happened to Giles. That episode didn't seem momentous enough, given what Giles means to the world of Buffy.

Still, Joss Whedon's Buffy remains a brilliant creation so I hope I like this series more than the last. I may even put on my Sunnydale High School t-shirt to read them. In fact I definitely will.

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Current Millar books under film option - Lonely Werewolf Girl, Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me, Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving. And soon, probably, The Good Fairies of New York, again.

I have sold plenty of film options in the past. No one has succeeded in making a film. Perhaps someone will manage this time. I'll send out positive thoughts while reading my Buffy comics.

The 1970s - Golden Age of Sex

2011-09-17T10:25:00.000+01:00

I was shuffling round the kitchen yesterday, making tea, and someone on the radio was talking about some new spy programme which is set in the 70s. And he had the nerve to say how bad the 70s were!

I was outraged. Because of course, not only did the 70s have the greatest music, from Led Zeppelin-led rock through prog, glam, punk and disco, the 70s were the golden age of sex.

People do like to imagine that the current time is the time when there is most sex happening but really, the 70s was the period when there was the most rampant sexual freedom in Britain.

There were various reasons for this. One, the free love ethic of the 60s finally arrived. There is an illusion about free love and so on happening in the 60s, but in reality, this only applied to a small group of people - the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and maybe a few hip writers. The rest of the country weren't really indulging in sex, drugs and rock and roll. It took them a while to catch up. But as the 70s rolled along, the rest of the country did catch up. Everyone decided that the long, long period of post-war morality had finally disappeared, and it was time to start fucking. People looked at Marc Bolan or Debbie Harry on TV, and thought, well what's the point in not having lots of sex? It makes no sense. So the idea of jumping into bed with people at every opportunity spread from a select few in London to almost everyone.

Next reason. No one in the 70s worried about catching any sort of sexually transmitted disease. Aids was unknown. Gonorrhoea and syphilis were vaguely remembered, but dismissed as easily curable with antibiotics. And in fact, I never encountered either of these diseases. As for other things, like herpes, no one had heard of them, or worried about them at all.

Also, all women were on the pill. This seemed universal at the time. No one used condoms. Condoms were regarded as a strange, old-fashioned sort of thing. It was entirely normal to sleep with someone and not even discuss contraception, because it was generally assumed that all women were using contraceptive pills.

So with no diseases and no pregnancy worries, and sexual freedom finally arriving, it was really a splendid time for shagging. No diseases, no condoms, no worries. There really was a lot of sex in the 70s. (As a side issue, everyone in Britain in the 70s was pleasantly thin. Really, there was a startling difference in body shapes between the 70s and today.)

Naturally, the handsome and virile young Millar was heavily in demand. Well I would have been had I not been practically crippled by overwhelming shyness as a youth. But I am not going to dwell on that, preferring to remember the 1970s as the golden age of fucking.

T-Shirts Flooding Through the Mail

2011-08-24T12:05:00.000+01:00

My minor obsession with manga and anime t-shirts continues. Two arrived this week and I have more on the way. Rather than fighting the obsession I'm just going along with it. I've found in the past that when I develop some minor obsession, I often get good writing inspiration as a result. Lonely Werewolf Girl, The Good Fairies of New York, Suzy Led Zeppelin and Me, and Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving all had their origins, in some way or other, in things I became obsessed with for a time. So it's quite possible that these t-shirts will eventually lead to something worthwhile.

K-On t-shirt

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya t-shirt

Avatar: The Last Airbender

2011-07-30T13:10:00.000+01:00

I just watched the film The Last Airbender on TV. I think the film came out in 2010. It was badly reviewed everywhere so I wasn't expecting much. Which is just as well, it wasn't very good.

It's a pity. The film was based on Avatar: The Last Airbender which was a really great cartoon, one of my favourites. I watched it on Nickelodeon, all three seasons, something like 60 episodes.

I remember the first time I saw it. I was just flicking through TV stations and the cartoon immediately caught my attention. As it turned out, I'd stumbled onto an all-day Avatar marathon on Nickelodeon so I abandoned all other plans for the day and watched every episode they showed, rushing into the kitchen during the adverts to make tea and biscuits.

After that I followed the show relentlessly, catching up with the episodes I'd missed and watching all the new ones. There were many times, when watching Avatar: The Last Airbender that I'd find myself amazed at something that had just happened, and I'd think 'This is such a good cartoon.'

It was like a mixture of an Anime and an American cartoon and, it was full of good characters, all using their elemental powers for fighting, and traveling between adventures on a flying-bison. I was sad when it all came to an end at the end of the third season, and still sort of hope they might make some more.

So the film was a big disappointment. The cartoon was set in a fictional world that was mostly Asian, and the characters were basically Asian. Avatar Aang was like a young Chinese monk. However in the film, all the main young characters were played by white actors. It was very strange. This caused a lot of adverse comment when the film came out, I can see why. Plenty of people loved these characters as they were, and for the film studio to suddenly make them not Asian but white, seemed weird, and maybe racist as well.

I watched the film thinking 'Who the hell are these characters meant to be? I want to see them like they were in the cartoon' (There was one Asian actor as a main character. Unfortunately, he didn't seem right for his part either.)

This was only one of many problems. There were great characters in the cartoon but they didn't come across as great in the film. The dialogue was hopeless. And it was all so rushed. The film covered the first series of the cartoon, which was twenty episodes, but they crammed it all into 90 minutes. It was all a great disappointment. (I notice the film got awarded some Golden Raspberry awards for being the worst film of the year. To be fair, I'm not sure it was quite that bad. It was bad, but there were some reasonable action sequences and parts of it looked good.)

I saw it on TV so I don't know how the 3-D was. But I'm not interested in 3-D, and hope I never have to watch it.

There were another two series in the cartoon, so I suppose if the film had been a success there would have been two more films, but it doesn't seem like they will happen now. In a way this is a shame, because the film, being based on the first series of the cartoon, didn't even have some of the best characters, who arrive later. Toph, for instance, a young earth-bender. And Princess Azula, who is a really great villain. And is also one of the many cartoon females I fined myself strangely attracted to.

Well, I still recommend the cartoon anyway, it was great. I don't know if its still shown anywhere but if you come across it you should definitely watch it.

Japan World Cup / Intruder Alert

2011-07-19T01:02:00.002+01:00

I very much enjoyed watching the women's world cup final between Japan and the USA. It was a really good game, played at a high standard. I didn't mind who won, as both teams were good. It was exciting right to the end, when Japan were the victors in a penalty shoot-out.

I toasted Japan's victory with some warm sake. Well, I was going to drink that anyway. But I pretended it was a toast. I've been able to buy sake more easily recently, as my local supermarket has started stocking it, so I don't have to shop online anymore, and wait for it to be delivered.

About 10.45 pm, not long after the game finished, I had an extremely alarming experience. Someone put a key in my front door and tried to open it! Actually, alarming doesn't quite cover it. I headed towards the front door, shouting loudly and attempting to sound fierce. This had no effect, and the unknown intruder kept trying to open my front door with a key

So I threw open the door, ready to fight for my life. OK, that's not quite accurate. I opened the door with the burglar chain still in place. But if the intruder had broken through that, I was definitely ready to fight for my life.

The intruder turned out to be a young man I recognised, from the next section of this block, so hopelessly drunk that he'd wandered into the wrong entrance. He was fumbling to open what he thought was his own front door. He looked at me quite cheerfully and smiled when I told him he had the wrong flat. Then he shook my hand before stumbling off.

So that was alarming. But for a drunk person, it was quite an easy mistake. There are various entrances to all the flats in this long block, and they all look exactly the same. I have on one occasion found myself wandering into the wrong entrance, though I did realise my mistake before I tried to open someone else's front door.

Afterwards I drank more sake and returned to watching The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, one of many anime I'm watching at the moment.

World Record for Ruining T-shirt

2011-07-08T14:33:00.003+01:00

My new Claymore t-shirt arrived from the USA. I ripped open the package, put it on, and went to look in the mirror.

'Hmm' I thought. 'That's strange. Why is it blood-stained?'

I realised I'd cut myself shaving. I hadn't even noticed before. Only a small nick, but enough to get blood on the t-shirt when I put it on. Sigh. I took it off and put it in the washing machine, thinking that, while I am clumsy and never take care of anything properly, I can usually keep something for more than five seconds before destroying it.

T-shirt currently in washing machine, getting blood rinsed out, I hope.

I seem to have developed an obsession with buying manga t-shirts. Possibly some sort of mid-life crisis effect. While other men are buying sports cars, I'm buying manga t-shirts. Hmm. Well, I am a big fan of Claymore anyway. I'll be pleased with the t-shirt when it's stain-free.

--

Here is an interview with me, and a good review of Lonely Werewolf Girl, on Jalisa Blackman's blog.

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Fetish Story and Fairy Story

2011-06-26T13:08:00.001+01:00

Following my last blog, I decided to put the fetish story I wrote for Skin Two magazine on a separate blog, with an adult content warning. There's a link to it from the stories page of my website.

I also put another new story on my site, Rainith the Red. This is a tale about a fairy in London. It's quite a long story. I was commissioned to write it for an anthology, Wicked Pretty Things. However, this anthology proved to be rather ill-fated, and ended up not being published. So I've just decided to put the story on my site.

I used to have more stories on my website but I became bored with them long ago. I'll leave these two stories on there for a while.

I'm currently writing a third book about Kalix, troubled werewolf, which is coming along quite slowly.

Help Me With My Household problems. And Story Problems.

2011-06-16T13:25:00.001+01:00

Current problems - Old TV - Sex story needing a home.

1) My television. This works perfectly well. But it's an old wide-screen TV, which means it is really huge and unwieldy. Not that I would generally be wielding it, I suppose. But it looks so old-fashioned compared to modern flat-screen TVs. Everyone else's TV is more modern than mine. People might be laughing at me behind my back.

Should I buy a new one? Or wait till mine goes wrong? If some old household appliance is working well, should you replace it just because you'd like a newer one? I've been puzzling about this for some time.

2) Sex story. I was looking at two stories I wrote for Skin Two, a fetish magazine. (Which closed for a while but has re-launched) I thought I like these stories but not many people had the chance to read them.

I used to have stories on my website, before I got bored with them all and removed them. So I thought I could just put these Skin Two stories on my website for people to read. Well, one of them anyway, which is better than the other. However, they were written for a fetish magazine and they're quite explicit. It was my intention, after receiving the commission for Skin Two, to write something that didn't avoid the subject of fetish and BDSM, but was quite cheerful. As opposed to gothic, gloomy or horrible. I thought I succeeded quite well. For stories which contain a lot of spanking, whipping and fucking, they're both rather cheerful. (to be fair to Skin Two, it also contained other good fiction, which wasn't gothic, gloomy or horrible.)

But I'm not sure about putting these stories on my website because having written Lonely Werewolf Girl and Curse of the Wolf Girl I seem to have become a teen or young adult author - which I never meant to do, it just happened by accident, though I'm not complaining because it's worked out well - and if young teenagers are visiting my website, maybe I shouldn't be putting explicit sex stories there. Might get complaints from outraged parents. I suppose I could post them somewhere else, but I have a low opinion of sites I've seen with sex stories on them. And who's going to read them there anyway?

Perhaps I'm worrying about nothing. There is so much pornography easily available on the internet, maybe no one would care at all about my cheerful fetish stories. But I'm not sure about that.

Comments and suggestions welcome.

Evelyn Waugh / K-On

2011-06-06T02:06:00.000+01:00

I just finished re-reading Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall and Vile Bodies, his first two novels, published in 1928 and 1930. I read these a long time ago and wondered if they were as good as I remembered them. They were, particularly Vile Bodies, Waugh's account of the bright young things who occupied the pages of London gossip columnists in the aftermath of the First World War.

I enjoyed reading this again. It's funny, quite cutting in places and it moves along rapidly in a series of short scenes. I like the lack of emotion shown by the central character when his life threatens to fall apart. Soon after it was published, the book became well-known for the language used by the bright young things; Agatha describing something as 'too, too sick-making' being the most obvious example.

I must have read Vile Bodies before I wrote my first book, so I wonder why I didn't steal from it, which is the sort of thing I would expect myself to do. But I didn't, as far as I remember.

I like this paragraph, at the heart of the novel -

…Masked parties, Savage parties, Victorian parties, Greek parties, Wild West parties, Russian parties, Circus parties, parties where one had to dress as somebody else, almost naked parties in St John’s Wood, parties in flats and studios and houses and ships and hotels and night clubs, in windmills and swimming-baths, tea parties at school where one ate muffins and meringues and tinned crab, parties at Oxford where one drank brown sherry and smoked Turkish cigarettes, dull dances in London and comic dances in Scotland and disgusting dances in Paris - all that succession and repetition of massed humanity… Those vile bodies…

My own piece of Evelyn Waugh trivia - A character in Lost in Translation uses Evelyn Waugh as her pseudonym for checking in anonymously at a hotel, not realising that Evelyn Waugh was male. The incongruity is pointed out by the character played by Scarlet Johansson. Then Scarlet's husband derides her for being smart. The cad.

K-On

However, the effort of reading two actual novels did take it out of me. I was fatigued afterwards, and could only slump in front of the TV for several days. I recovered gradually with anime, and watched many episodes of K-On. (Target Demographic - Japanese Schoolchildren age 8 - 14, and Scottish authors unable to rise from the couch.)

Hmm. I wish I had a job writing this anime. It's all about a band called Ho-kago Tea Time, which translates to After School Tea Time. Despite this being set in a present-day Japanese School, there's one scene where, to sort of signify great rock music, they show a picture of Led Zeppelin. Ah, their appeal is eternal.

Small Bird Unhappiness.

2011-05-24T15:02:00.002+01:00

I was walking home around eight-o-clock when I passed a small bird on the pavement, a baby sparrow I think. It was hopping around awkwardly. So I was concerned about this, but not sure what to do.

There didn't seem to be any trees around, or gardens, I wasn't sure where it could have come from. It was cowering on the pavement, looking unhappy.

I didn't want to pick it up, for two reasons. One, I had an idea that picking up a young bird is not a good thing to do, for the health of the bird. Two, I was nervous it might peck me and give me some incurable bird disease.

So after a few minutes dithering I phoned up the RSPCA (Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) but this wasn't so easy because I had to call directory enquiries and then I knew I didn't have much credit on my phone. I got through to the RSPCA helpline, but this again was quite complicated. It was all 'press button one for this, and button two for that, and button three…' Finally there was an option for wild animals in distress and the automated helpline said if you found a young bird you should leave it alone, because it was probably a fledgling which had hopped out the nest, and it's parents were still looking after it. It would be able to fly in a day or two.

I wasn't very convinced about this - I could't see any sort of place it might have come from so I wasn't sure how its parents would find it. But I wandered home anyway, feeling quite gloomy about the bird, and thinking I should have been able to do something better. (This is all in the context that I am a hopelessly disorganised and inefficient person at everything.)

Once home I looked at the RSPCA website, which again told me that fledgling birds should be left alone. But it did also say that they might need help if they were injured. And if they were in an exposed position, like not in a garden, for instance, they might need put up on a ledge, out of the way of cats.

Well, by now I was confused. This bird did seem like a fledgling, fresh out the nest, but it had also seemed a bit injured. Or maybe it wasn't injured, maybe it was just distressed because it was on the pavement. I had no idea, really.

The advice line was just an endless stream of number options, giving pre-recorded advice. So I decided to phone the other line, which is the animal cruelty line (Though this didn't seem quite right, as I wasn't actually reporting any cruelty). This line gave more options, which included a message saying that they get many calls about young birds that have left their nests but are fine really. So I was a bit put off, and thought I'd probably be wasting everyone's time with my phone call. But I persevered anyway, because by now I was feeling very gloomy about the little bird on the pavement.

Finally I got to a place on the phone where I could report a wild animal in distress, and the RSPCA will send out an inspector to look. But among the myriad of phone options, it tells you that you can't report this unless you can actually see the distressed animal at that moment. Because, said the phone line automated service, they waste lots of time sending inspectors to check on distressed wild animals that turn out not to be there any more.

Well, I can understand this. The RSPCA is a charity, they don't have endless resources, in fact I imagine they are hard-pressed to do their job at all.

So I could only report this bird in trouble if I could actually see it. I took a note of the number, ate a biscuit because I was hungry, and walked back up the road, thinking that if I saw the bird again, I could phone the RSPCA back and report it.

However, when I arrived there, which was about half an hour since I'd first been there, the little bird was gone. I had a good look round but there was no sign of it.

There was a wooden fence above where the bird had been, and above that a sort of concealed hedge, from the garden beyond. I wondered if the parent birds might have rescued the fledgling. But I didn't see how, I don't think parent birds could pick up one of their offspring when it's grown that much. There were also some gaps in the fence I hadn't noticed before. Maybe it had gone through one of them, and was safe in a garden.

Hmm. I sort of doubt it. I think it's more likely a cat ate it, or maybe one of the many urban foxes there are around here.

So I walked home feeling very gloomy about all this, and am still quite depressed. Had I been more organised, and not for instance the sort of person who is worried about catching diseases from wild animals - and in fact is quite nervous about animals when it comes right down to it - I'm sure I could have done more. I could have picked the bird up, and looked after it till I took it to a vet or something. So I'm feeling rather a failure about all this at the moment.

Portal, general malaise, t-shirt

2011-05-11T12:59:00.000+01:00

Arsenal's disastrous end-of-season form - and some angst about the difficulty of life - but mainly Arsenal's poor form - cast me into deep gloom, a malaise so profound that even if top model Rosie Huntington Whiteley had knocked on my door to announce that A) She had a secret crush on me, B) She'd been a naughty girl, and C) She'd brought along some agent provocateur lingerie she'd just been modelling, I'd still have been gloomy.

This is obviously some serious gloom. What if she'd brought a bag of manga? Well, I suppose that might have helped. But I'll need some beer as well.

I look forward to the day I can just disappear into some giant virtual reality computer where that sort of thing can happen. I'd never come back.

My gloom did lift somewhat when my new Portal 2 t-shirt arrived in the post. Did I mention how I can become completely obsessed with video games? Here I am wearing my Portal t-shirt, a willing victim of their marketing department. And you can see how happy I look. Actually I was quite cheerful when that photo was taken.

Other things in picture - my kitchen wall - corner of elderly fridge - sock hanging over radiator. There were other socks, but they're out of shot.

Determined Game Playing

2011-04-29T14:29:00.000+01:00

I've been playing Portal on my Playstation, at the expense of all other activity. The experience fits in very well with two characteristics I have. One, I tend to be far behind other people in discovering things. Two, I then become completely obsessed with them.

After a friend recommended the game to me, I bought it and then worked my way through it in a determined fashion, meanwhile thinking to myself 'This is the best game ever invented.' (I can become over-enthusiastic.)

So, I was some years behind millions of other gamers in playing Portal. But in a way this has turned out well because the second game has just been released. After finishing the first game I didn't have to wait any time for a new one, I just bought Portal 2 and kept on playing.

My obsession can also extend to merchandise. I've been wondering if I could justify buying myself a companion cube. I'd like one. They do look like they'd make good companions. And there are some t-shirts I'd like too. The Valve store only operates in America but they do do international shipping, so I could rush them an order.

On the related subject of video games made into films - which I also saw later than other people - I watched Prince of Persia but I was disappointed. There's something wrong with he film. Well, being based on a video game it's completely stupid, obviously, but that wasn't the real problem. I'm quite prepared to sit and watch a completely stupid film based on a video game, I'm not expecting the plot to be any good.

The problem was that in the original game, you get rid of your human opponents quickly and then move on to fighting the sand monsters, who are much more interesting. But this never happens in the film. I kept waiting for the sand monsters to appear but they never did.

Other films watched some time after their release - Kick Ass. I enjoyed this. It wasn't as violent as I feared. I'm not keen on gore or horror. However, though I thought it was a good film, I enjoyed the parts where the young girl with purple hair was fighting much better than all the other parts. So I kept thinking 'Where is the girl with purple hair? I want her to come back and start fighting again.' If they were to make another film featuring just her, fighting all the time, I'd like that.

And now, I could do my day's writing shift. Or I could get back to Portal 2. Well, there's only one winner in that competition.

My Bloody Valentine

2011-04-14T22:57:00.000+01:00

I'm torn between buying the soundtrack for Lost in Translation and - eh - not buying it. In favour of buying it: I'm still obsessed with the film. Also, I just discovered the the soundtrack contains five songs by Kevin Shields, the main creative force behind My Bloody Valentine. I did know there was a song by My Bloody Valentine in the film, but I didn't realise Kevin Shields did more of the music.

Unfortunately I have a strong feeling that buying a soundtrack is a really bad thing to do. Like it means you're a big fan of film music. Which I'm not. But maybe this only applies to the soundtrack of Evita, or Phantom of the Opera. Hmm. I do have a natural inclination against it for some reason.

I really liked My Bloody Valentine. Their album Loveless is a great favourite. I bought it on cassette in 1991 and I clearly remember wondering if the cassette was warped, so strange was some of the music, till you got used to it. I'm sure other people thought this as well, the first time they heard it.

I remember seeing My Bloody Valentine play, but for some reason my memory fails me a little on this gig. It was in the early 90s, and I'm sure it was at the Forum in North London, but I'm certain My Bloody Valentine weren't headlining. They were the support band but I can't remember which band they were supporting. I saw a lot of bands at the Forum around that time. I can remember The Pixies, Carter USM, Pop Will Eat itself, the Jesus and Mary Chain, and others, but I can't quite remember who My Bloody Valentine played with.

---

Here is a 10 second video of me. I already put this on Facebook - and Twitter - but I'm putting it here as well because, as the first video of myself I've ever uploaded anywhere, it's obviously an important social document, and needs to be preserved for society. Possibly NASA should send it into space, so alien civilisations can eventually see it.

Hi, here's my new Runaways t-shirt. Kalix would like this.

Cocksucker Blues - Rolling Stones

2011-03-30T11:18:00.001+01:00

I just watched Cocksucker Blues, a documentary from 1972 about a Rolling Stones tour of America, directed by Robert Frank. The film has never been officially released. When it was finished the Rolling Stones decided they didn't want it shown, so it's remained in the vaults for the past 39 years, viewable only in bootleg copies. I watched it in ten parts on YouTube.

I did enjoy it as a period piece from the 70s, but it wasn't the wildly exciting documentary I anticipated. It does have its moments, including quite a prolonged scene of a woman injecting heroin. There's a lot of traveling, a lot of hotel rooms, some music, brief glimpses of sex and nudity, but the main impression you get is of a lot of stoned people sitting around talking. There isn't much of the young Rolling Stones on stage, though the few live performances are good. I suppose the director was just trying to give an impression of what life on tour was like, in which he succeeds.

I wasn't a Rolling Stones fan while young, but in later life I started to like them a lot more. The tour in the documentary is to promote the album Exile on Main Street, and that's a really fine album, one of their greatest moments.

Cocksucker Blues is an odd choice of title. I suppose it was just chosen to be offensive. Cocksucker is not a common insult in Britain. I've never used it, and I don't think I've ever heard anyone use it for real. (I've probably heard people say it in imitation of an American film or TV show.) The Rolling Stones certainly wouldn't have used the word when they were growing up. In common with the rest of London, they would have insulted someone by calling them a facking cahnt.

The Runaways / Epictetetus

2011-03-10T14:55:00.001Z

When a person does something really stupid, and their foolishness is pointed out to them, they sometimes say - All right, I might have got it wrong but it's not like I killed anyone.

Faced with this, some time around 100 AD, the Stoic Philosopher Epictetus made this reply - You didn't kill anyone because there was no one there to be killed. But the only thing you could get wrong, you did get wrong.

I think that's a fair point, and a good reply.

I'm not surprised that people used the familiar excuse - Well it's not like I killed anyone - as long ago as the first century. In ancient literature people often have the just the same sort of problems and attitudes as people do today.

After musing about this for some days, and thinking I must have something really interesting to say about people always being the same, I realise I don't. Hum. Oh well, I find it interesting anyway. And I like Epictetus. I admire him too. He was a slave when he was young, and then went on to be one the founders of Stoic philosophy.

--

I watched The Runaways. I thought it was a good film. Kristen Stewart was excellent as Joan Jett. I liked her a lot. (I haven't seen any of the Twilight films however.) Dakota fanning was a good Cherie Currie too.

Kim Fowley, their manager, comes over as strange, and quite creepy, though I'm sure that the members of the band have said things about him far worse than portrayed in the film.

When the Runaways were around, in 1978 and 79, music journalists in Britain completely derided them. I don't think I ever saw a good word written about them. They were dismissed as just a bunch of young girls selling records by dressing in revealing corsets and so on. This was very unfair. They were a very good band. Their Live in Japan album is great, they could really play.

I looked at their page on Wikipedia and at the foot of the page, under the heading 'Use in media' it says 'In the 2008 novel Lonely Werewolf Girl, by Martin Millar, the main character's favorite band is The Runaways.' I was pleased about that. In the next book, Kalix will go and see the film.

Life's wisdom. Vacuum cleaners, bagless

2011-02-19T16:10:00.000Z

Moving through life, you pick up pieces of wisdom and experience. And my current life-lesson, learned quite recently, is that it's a bad idea to buy a bagless vacuum cleaner.

There are attractions, of course. When you're about to buy a new vacuum cleaner, and you're looking through the Argos catalogue for instance, and you see the adverts for vacuum cleaners without bags, you think, 'Well that seems like a good idea.' Because the bags are quite annoying. When it gets full you have to change it, which means buying a new one, and that can be awkward. They don't sell these bags in that many shops. And when you find them, they all have complicated numbers, like '30005 XJB' And you look at the bag, and think - 'Will that fit my vacuum model 30005 XJA, or do I need a different one?' And then you probably arrive home with the wrong bags and it's just very frustrating.

So, given all that provocation by the bags, it's sort of natural to think 'To hell with it, I'm going to buy a bagless vacuum cleaner.' Which brings me back to looking through the Argos catalogue, and thinking - 'That looks fairly cheap, and it doesn't have a bag. I'll buy that one.'

But this, I now advance as a general theory, is a mistake. The bagless vacuum cleaner is fine at the start. Sucks up the dirt, and no bag to replace. The problem is when you try to empty it. Which is probably when it gets so full it just won't work anymore. And then you find out something they don't tell you in the catalogue - emptying a bagless vacuum cleaner is really disgusting. You open it up and instead of just whipping out one full bag and putting in another empty one, you actually have to clean out all this filth you've sucked up for the past six months. And it doesn't all come out easily. Some of it is all squashed up and compacted and you have to kind of scrape it out and it's really disgusting. I hate cleaning out this bagless vacuum cleaner. It's appalling. I regard the whole thing as a terrible mistake.

Note - none of this blog is applicable to fancy Dyson cleaners and other high-end devices. They may be completely different. All my experience of household appliances comes from the cheap end of the Argos catalogue.

Price Increase Scandal

2011-02-14T11:24:00.000Z

I like this painting by Picasso, sold last week at auction for £25 million. It depicts Marie-Therese Walter, with whom Picasso had a long affair. Picasso met her at a tube station in Paris in 1927. She was 17 at the time and he approached her with the line 'I am Picasso. You and I are going to do great things together.' I couldn't help but be impressed with Picasso for this. What a rogue. Am now eager to try it out. There isn't a tube station nearby but there is a large bus station so I'm off to give it a try. What could go wrong? I can definitely see this working out well.

It's Valentine's day. This generally reminds me of the tragic scene in Buffy when Xander gives Cordelia a necklace as a Valentines present. She immediately breaks up with him, thereby crushing Xander's spirit. Cordelia was a wonderful character in Buffy. I was sorry when she left the show, and she was never so good in Angel.

But in the main scandal of the day, my local Sainsbury's supermarket is now charging £1 for a packet of hobnobs! My favourite biscuits - or cookies - have rocketed in price. I was staggered when I noticed this. No doubt using the recession as an excuse, Sainsbury's have whacked up the price. It's scandalous. Only a few weeks ago they were 85 pence, and in fact quite recently they were on sale for the reduced price of 45 pence. Now it's a pound for a packet! I'm completely outraged. Hobnobs are a large part of my staple diet. I depend on them. £1 for a packet of Hobnobs. It's just not right. May stage protest outside the shop, with an angry placard.

Recent Cultural Activities

2011-02-06T16:05:00.003Z

It's been a big few days of culture here. Meaning culture I can do without moving from the couch, obviously. It's not like I'm going to make the effort to go to the opera or anything.

First I finished a large batch of Buffy comics. I'd fallen behind with the series. These comics counted as Buffy Season 8, a continuation of the TV show, and were overseen by Joss Whedon. I'm not really sure what to say about them. I don't love these comics, but I love Buffy and it's good to have more.

Next I watched Star Trek. This was fairly recent film, with new actors playing the young Spock and the young Captain Kirk. I've never been a huge Star Trek fan - apart from Voyager, which I liked purely because of the awesome beauty of 7 of 9 - but I quite enjoyed this film. The plot wasn't great but it all looked entertaining. And there was a green-skinned woman in a bikini. I liked her. Possibly my critical standards suffer when confronted by attractive alien women in bikinis. But I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

And this Star Trek film reminded me of an old record, from 1979 I think, Where's Captain Kirk by Spizzeneregi, which was a big post-punk favourite. You used to hear that at gigs and clubs all the time.

So I went and listened to it on YouTube, and when I was on YouTube, just browsing around, I happened across something by Eno, and I thought 'I haven't listened to Here Come the Warm Jets for a really long time.' So I listened to it and thought, as I have thought before, this is one of the greatest albums ever. It was Eno's first solo record after he left Roxy Music and it is brilliant.

I've always believed the title - Here Come the Warm Jets - was a reference to urination, and probably something to do with Eno's large collection of pornography, though Wikipedia suggests otherwise. But anyway it reminded me of a book I hadn't thought about for a long time, Story of the Eye, written by Georges Bataille in 1928. Which, as far as I remember, does contain a lot of sex with people pissing on each other. Although it is a very long time since I read this. (I seem to say that a lot these days.) I remember reading it when I was at school, right after I read The Story of O. I liked The Story of O much better than Story of the Eye. But my blog is now lurching off course into something like 'Fetish books I read furtively at school instead of concentrating in geography class,' so, getting back to my cultural achievements in the past few days, I also read The Diary of Lady Murasaki by Murasaki Shikibu in Japan around 1008. Its a diary of her time at the Imperial Palace. Murasaki also wrote The Tale of Genji, which is a Japanese classic. I've never read it, but I will have to read it now because her diary about her life at court was so interesting.

The Japanese court was really civilised around the year 1000. Much more civilised than court life in Britain, I'm sure. The King of England at the time was Ethelred the Unready, one of England's best-named Kings. The King of Scotland was Cináed mac Duib, or Kenneth III. His grand-daughter Gruoch was Lady Macbeth, as written about by Shakespeare.

Am now worn out with culture and will return to watching SpongeBob SquarePants for the rest of the week.

Romantic Comedy

2011-02-01T10:09:00.000Z

I just watched a film called Suburban Girl because I thought it was going to be a romantic comedy. But it turned out not to be a comedy at all, just a romance. I persevered with it because it starred Sarah Michelle Gellar, who was of course Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I'm willing to give Buffy a chance in any film, even though I was fairly unimpressed by her career choice of Scooby-Doo movies.

I enjoyed Suburban Girl but once again felt thwarted in my efforts to find a good romantic comedy. I am starting to suspect that the genre may have peaked with When Harry Met Sally. Maybe there will never be another one as good as that again. Or one that reaches the heights of Annie Hall. Or even Four Weddings and a Funeral.

Actually, I sort of lost the inspiration to look for good romantic comedies around 2003 when I went to see The Sweetest Thing at the cinema. This was meant to be a romantic comedy but it was such a bad film I walked out half way through. At some point in the film, the main characters - one of whom was Cameron Diaz, who might have known better - were all sitting in a restaurant when for no apparent reason they all broke into a 'raunchy' song and dance. The film wasn't actually a musical, but despite this the director apparantly thought it would help things along if the women started singing something called 'the penis song.' This was so bad, and so inappropriate, that I was staggered when it happened. I still regard it as one of the worst scenes I've ever seen in any film.

I was so fed up I left the cinema. When I was walking out I grunted in the direction of the women at the cashier's office, saying something like "This is the worst film ever made." And this woman, who turned out to be the manageress, said "Well perhaps it's not your sort of film…"

I understood why she said that. Before venturing out to the cinema I'd probably been sitting round writing for four or five days and had forgotten to get shaved, or changed, and possibly did not look like the sort of person who enjoyed a good romantic comedy. In fact I may have looked like a tramp who wandered in off the street.

So I said to her that I was a fan of romantic comedies but this one had just been really terrible, and was a disgrace to the genre. And then the manageress smiled in a friendly manner and gave me a voucher to come back to the cinema for free, because I'd hated the film so much. I thought that was good customer service from the Streatham Odeon. I liked that they gave me a free voucher. But the whole incident did make me lose heart about finding romantic comedies I enjoyed.

Beat / French Books

2011-01-17T19:35:00.000Z

I've just read an interview with Neal Cassady's wife on the Guardian website. She sounded nice, but it reminded me that I've never liked any of these famous beat generation people - Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg and so on. I've always found them annoying. I mean, riding around on a bus, listening to bebop and taking drugs, what's so great about that? Sounds terrible to me.

Hmmm. Why don't I like these people? I'm not certain. It's so long since I read On the Road I can't remember why I didn't like it. Maybe it's just an irrational prejudice, of which I have my share. It may possibly be because they all had exciting adventures which I would not be able to manage. Yes, that may be the real reason. Damn them for having interesting lives.

I'm right about bebop however. Surely it was always unlistenable. If you wanted great music in the 50s then R&B was much more entertaining. As long ago as 1946, there were great records like Roy Brown's Good Rockin' Tonight, and then of course the epic Rocket 88, written by Ike Turner in 1951.

--

After offering some free copies of the French edition of Lonely Werewolf Girl in my last blog, I realised, sadly, that I had made the mistake of getting involved in an activity which would require me to think. Having no idea of who to give the books to, I finally wrote down a number for each reply left then stuck a pin in the sheet of paper. This competition may not have satisfied the high standards required by the local gaming commission. Nonetheless, my winners are -

1 Simon Anderson

2 Marjorie

So if these people would like to email me via my website at www.martinmillar.com to give me their addresses, I'll post you the books.

Free signed copies of Kalix, la Loup-Garou Solitaire

2010-12-31T11:08:00.000Z

A box arrives from my French publisher, Editions Intervalles, containing copies of Kalix, la loup-garou solitaire, the French edition of Lonely Werewolf Girl. This book is huge! It's an enormous volume. After reading about Kalix, you could easily use it for fighting off burglars, or clearing space on a crowded train. Or if you were at some sporting event you could stand on it, and get a much better view.

Rather than leaving this box of books cluttering up the place, I'll give away two signed copies, in a small competition. To enter my small book competition, just leave a comment below telling me you'd like the book. Anyone can enter. After a few days I'll select two winners somehow or other. At random, probably. Unless someone leaves a comment which is so entertaining that it has to be a winner.

Big Eyed Beans From Venus

2010-12-29T11:51:00.001Z

I was saddened by the recent death of Captain Beefheart, or Don Van Vliet, to give him his proper name. I've listened to his records very often over the years. People mostly mention his experimental music such as Trout Mask Replica, but to be honest, I liked Captain Beefheart best when he was less experimental. My favourite record of his was Clear Spot, and there were other really fine albums, like Safe as Milk and Strictly Personal. All containing a unique sort of blend of growling desert blues and jagged rock. Maybe with some dadaism thrown in, if I actually knew what dadaism meant. Not being that great at writing about music, I can't really describe what these records are like. But anyway, Captain Beefheart was a great singer, he wrote a lot of fine songs, and he played with a lot of good musicians.

I saw Captain Beefheart play in Glasgow in the 70s, twice. Looking back, I'm slightly surprised that this happened. It seems somehow unlikely that the Captain ever arrived in Scotland. However, at the time, Glasgow was a big destination for rock bands, and everybody came there as part of their UK tour.

I started going to see gigs at the Greens' Playhouse - which later became the Apollo - in the early 70s, while I was 14 I think. Making a list, just off the top of my head, by the time I was 17 I'd seen these bands play live -

Led Zeppelin (best thing ever)
Captain Beefheart
Mott the Hoople
Deep Purple
Black Sabbath (Iron Man!)
Hawkwind (space ritual!)
Black Oak Arkansas
Emerson Lake and Palmer
The Groundhogs
Family
The Who (floodlights, smashed guitars)
Roxy Music (Eno in silver feathered jacket)
King Crimson
Fairport Convention
Wishbone Ash
Yes
Sensational Alex Harvey Band (Big Glasgow favourite)
Uriah Heep
Lou Reed (in his brief 'blond-haired' period)
Dr Feelgood (? maybe that was later)

And I'm sure there were others that have escaped my memory at the moment. I had a ticket to see David Bowie, just before he became Ziggy Stardust, but the gig was cancelled on the night, leaving us cold and frustrated at the door. Anyway, that's not a bad list of rock music at the time, in these distant pre-punk days.

It was good to see all these bands, at a young age. I wasn't the only person to do this, by any means. Plenty of people I was at school with would have seen all these gigs too.

My big regret is not going to see T Rex. I was put off by the thought of all the screaming girls. When I was 15 I didn't think it would be very good to be surrounded by screaming girls. Because at that age I was stupid. Arrrghhhhh. What a mistake. Marc Bolan was one of the great talents and icons of 20 century music. I can't believe I didn't go and see him when I had the chance. If a time portal was to open up now in London, offering the chance to go and see Marc Bolan and T Rex in 1973, I'd be leading the stampede to get there.

The main venue in Glasgow, the Greens' Playhouse, was an old cinema, capacity about 2,500 I think, so it was quite a small place to see some of these bands. Led Zeppelin were playing in stadiums around the world, but I saw them in that small cinema. It was great.

* and you can read more about this in my fine novel 'Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me' *

I saw Captain Beefheart play twice. For some reason, my memory of these gigs isn't as sharp as some others, but I do remember being quite disappointed at the first concert, which was at the Kelvin Hall. And then the second gig, a year or so after at the Greens' Playhouse, was brilliant. The captain and his Magic Band were on good form and it was a great night.

New British edition of The Good Fairies of New York

2010-12-15T22:07:00.002Z

Piatkus will be publishing their edition of The Good Fairies of New York on the 10th January. Although this book has been available here as an import from America, it's quite a while since it actually had a publisher in Britain. Waterstone's are promoting the book in January and February, so I hope to see bundles of the book lying around on tables in their shops. It's good if you can get your books lying around in bundles on these tables near the front of the stores, but it can be a difficult thing to achieve.

--

My heart raced as I read that Scarlett Johansson's marriage has come to an end. The poor woman will definitely be in need of some comforting. It's time to relaunch my plan of hanging round in hotels looking forlorn, in the hope that I can meet the beautiful Scarlett and establish some sort of Lost in Translation-type relationship. I have the camouflage t-shirt ready and everything, and can do the Bill Murray ageing desperation part no problem at all. I have Just Like Honey ready to play in a big final scene. As long as Scarlett has the pink wig with her, everything will be just perfect.

Ice and Snow

2010-12-06T12:02:00.000Z

I've been shivering in the cold as London disappeared beneath the snow. My flat can take a while to heat up, leading to some muttering and cursing while I'm waiting to get warm. Once fully heated, I find it difficult to move from the couch, just in case it's not so cosy anywhere else.

However I have been carrying on with the long walk to the shops which I do everyday, because otherwise I'd never go anywhere. This long walk has proved hazardous. The roads were gritted but not the pavements, which became quite dangerous, with compacted snow and ice.

We had a milder day yesterday and a lot of the snow disappeared, but the temperature has dropped again so I think we might get more. I can't help feeling a bad accident is just around the corner. I may soon be discovered unconscious under a snowdrift, still clutching a box of tea bags and a packet of hobnobs.

The only thing getting me through the freezing misery is football, and I watched a lot over the weekend, much of it involving shouting and shaking my fist at the TV. It ended well for Arsenal, due mainly to the overwhelming brilliance of Samir Nasri.

Am now attempting to plug up some of the draughts in this flat, and stop the cold air seeping in. Unfortunately I'm useless at this, as I'm completely hopeless at anything practical. I should have learned how to do practical household tasks some time, but unfortunately I never seem to have managed.

D.I.S.C.O.

2010-11-23T15:37:00.002Z

As I was in the kitchen, shuffling around getting cups and the teapot and milk and maybe some hobnobs to go with them, Lady Gaga came on the radio. It struck me that I quite liked the record. And I thought 'that's strange,' because modern music generally it makes me feel grumpy, bad tempered, and, worst of all, old. So I wondered why I liked this music by Lady Gaga. Then it struck me. It was just disco music. These Lady Gaga records are just disco records. They wouldn't have sounded out of place at any disco in 1979.

So that's probably why I liked it. I always rather liked disco music. Not that I have ever been a great habitué of discos, you will not be surprised to hear. But at the very end of the seventies and the start of the eighties I did used to go to Heaven, which was (and still is, I think) a large gay disco near Charing Cross.

As far as I remember, London didn't have any late night clubs at that time. Now there are late night clubs everywhere but back then the only places that opened late were small private clubs. So when this very large disco opened in the centre of town, it was quite something. Earlier than this I remember going to a gay bar in Brixton because it was the only place open late. Then when Heaven opened I'd sometimes go there because it was the only place open after midnight.

I trust I'm not being offensive here. Is there anything offensive about the image of the young Millar invading gay discos merely because he needed somewhere to get a pint of lager at two in the morning? Hmm. Possibly. But it's not like I indulged in any oppressive heterosexual behaviour while I was there. Like for instance trying to pick up any of the pretty young women who, for some reason, always also made up a small proportion of the clientele. Well actually I did go home with a really attractive woman I met at Heaven one night. But I didn't make a big thing about it. Maybe I bragged about it a little.

Anyway, I heard a lot of disco music at Heaven, and I always liked it. I can remember listening with interest to drum machines, and various electronic beats, which appeared in disco music before crossing over into more mainstream music. I certainly heard interesting electronics in discos before they appeared in these crappy eighties electro pop records.

I particularly remember Donna Summer's I Feel Love, though actually you didn't have to go to a disco to hear that as it was a massive hit and you used to hear it everywhere. In those days there were a lot of small record shops and outside in the street you could hear the music they were playing. I have an idea that close to where I lived there was one small record shop which constantly played the Sex Pistols' Pretty Vacant, and another playing Donna Summers' I feel Love. Though it's possible I've just invented that memory. Hmm. No, on reflection, I think that did really happen.

Anyway, Lady Gaga's music would not have sounded out of place at Heaven in 1980, it would just have sounded like another disco record, which I suppose is why I like her now.

High Winds, Werewolf Playlist

2010-11-13T16:12:00.000Z

There have been high winds here recently, and after several dangerous trips to the shops I count myself fortunate to have escaped serious injury. Not only is there the ever-present danger of a tile being blown off a roof and landing on my head, there's the terrifying prospect of scaffolding collapsing. In this part of South London there always seems to be scaffolding around some old building and I'm nervous of it. And when I say nervous I mean I'm scared of it and cross the road to avoid it. I have a morbid fear of being buried under a pile of scaffolding. It's just so dangerous, all these heavy metal poles up there above you. There should be some safe modern version, like maybe scaffolding made of bouncy castle material.

I do have some reason to be nervous of winds, dating from my childhood. In 1968 there was a bad hurricane in Glasgow. I can still remember waking up in the middle of the night wondering what on earth was happening, as the winds roared around the house, and slates flew off roofs. It was so loud. I got up, and found the rest of the family also awake. We all sat downstairs rather nervously through the night, waiting for it to pass.

It happened as a complete surprise, without any warning. Hurricanes are not at all common in Scotland. By world standards, it probably wasn't that severe a hurricane, but there were people killed in the storm. So perhaps my great dislike of strong winds come from that.

In-between coping with this dangerous weather, I completed an interview for Largehearted Boy, comprising a playlist for Curse of The Wolf Girl, which you can find here. I like this playlist.

Outside View

2010-11-03T10:44:00.000Z

Outside View

In March 1977 the punk band Eater released their first single, Outside View, which I bought, and still have. Last week I bought a t-shirt featuring a picture of the cover. I felt obliged to do this.

Why was I obliged to buy this t-shirt, you may ask? Well, oddly, there was an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer where Oz was wearing a t-shirt with this picture on it. I was very surprised at the time. I wouldn't have thought anyone in Hollywood would even have known what the picture was. Eater were quite a well known punk band in Britain for a short while around 1977 but I don't think their first single ever achieved global recognition.

But there it was, in Buffy. Ever since then I've had the vague feeling that if there had been a t-shirt in Buffy featuring a punk single I owned, then I really ought to have that t-shirt too. So I have a pleasant sense of completion having now bought this, from a 'Camdens Burning t-shirts' on Ebay.

I still listen to this single, though on itunes now rather than vinyl. It strikes me that after thirty years or so, I still can't make out all the lyrics. Some of them have defeated my best efforts at interpretation. Though generally I'm quite bad at understanding lyrics, and liable to comic misunderstandings. Here is the song on youtube, and here is my version of the lyrics. If anyone can fill in the gaps, I'd be pleased.

A Saturday night in the street
looking through the plate glass windows
outside view

There's a television standing on the floor (?)
??????????? ????????? ???????? ?????
?????????? no more (?)

I wanna come in cos I've got the blues
All that I am stuck with is this outside view

Oh! I'm running about (?)
Got my feet on the ground
??????? ????????? ?????????

Nothing to give (?) and nothing to gain

A cop comes along and says what's your name
(?) Said I am a girl and my name is Germaine (??!!!!)

He says you'd better come along I want (?) a word (?) with you
I will stay out here with my outside view

Oh! I'm running about (?)
Oh! Got my feet on the ground

Oh! ??????? ????????? ?????????
Nothing to give (?) and nothing to gain

Italian Curse of the Wolf Girl

2010-10-22T11:22:00.000+01:00

The Italian edition of Curse of the Wolf Girl - Vex e Kalix - will be published by Fazi Editore on the 26th November. Here's the cover -

It's a really nice cover. Publishers have produced some good artwork for these werewolf books.

I urge people to buy them, thereby enabling me to keep on playing Final Fantasy, watching SpongeBob SquarePants and never having to work again. I'm not one of those people who is driven to keep on writing. I could quite happily lie on the couch in a semi-coma for the next three years.

Arrrghhh! People!!!

2010-10-15T08:22:00.002+01:00

People are so unbelievably annoying and stupid at times. Making me despise the human race at this moment is the complete mess people round here made of the local council's attempts to encourage re-cycling.

First the council gave everyone these big plastic boxes. You put in all your paper, glass and tin. Then you put the box outside your flat and they collected it. Unfortunately, when the boxes were left outside, other people put junk in them - household garbage, plastic bottles, that sort of thing. Just threw it in like they were rubbish bins. There were a few extra boxes which were always left in front of the block, and these also became rubbish bins. Soon the whole place turned into a big mess.

So. The council abandoned the individual boxes and instead placed three very large bins in front of the block of flats, clearly marked for recycling only. You just took your paper, glass and tin down there and threw it in the big bin. Once again, it was a perfectly good recycling scheme, easy to use.

However people, apparently too stupid to comprehend it, immediately started to ruin it by once more treating these recycling bins as rubbish bins. People would leave other junk beside them. Old carpets, bit of household furniture, even bags of garbage. Even though this was clearly not the place to leave any of this stuff, people did it. What's more, people with large amounts of cardboard to throw away, like large boxes, couldn't be bothered to rip the cardboard up and put it in the bins. Instead they'd just dump a load of boxes beside the recycling bins. Which meant, inevitably, that they'd get rained on. In no time there would be a mass of soggy disgusting cardboard rotting on the pavement. Other people, seeing this mass of rotting cardboard then would leave more junk beside it. Very soon the whole place was a terrible mess, and the council's perfectly good recycling scheme was ruined again.

Now they have put a smaller recycling bin inside the little cupboards where everyone's bins are stored. As these are locked away, this might do better, but I doubt it, because when people go to put their rubbish there they will just toss it in the recycling bins anyway. People already leave stuff in there that the council's garbage collectors obviously aren't going to take away, like old chairs for instance, because these people cannot be bothered to get rid of them properly.

Why are people so annoying and stupid like this? It's not like the recycling was ever difficult but people just made a complete mess of it.

Similarly, adding to my ire, in the supermarket there's a cat rescue bin, placed there by a local charity. You put cat food in there and it goes to a shelter for homeless cats. This is a standard sort of black rubbish bin, but taped to it are pictures of cats. On top of it, there is a big sign with more pictures of cats, and an explanation of what it's for. It says in big letters 'Only put cat food in here.' And do people pay any attention? Naturally they don't. Every time I go to put a tin of cat food in the bin, it's full of rubbish - empty crisp packets and stuff like that - because people are too lazy and stupid to read the sign and realise that it's not actually meant to be a rubbish bin.

Arrrgh. People. Urgh.

* However *

* Calming down for a moment. *

I'm expecting dancing on the streets of Paris today, as Lonely Werewolf Girl is finally published in France, by Editions Intervalles. It has taken rather a long time to get there, but now here it is - Kalix, la loup-garou solitaire.

Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick

2010-10-05T03:53:00.001+01:00

At the end of 1978 I was working in the the Unemployment Benefit office in Brixton, as a temporary clerk. At that time in London it wasn't hard to get a temporary job for a few months if you needed some money. When the contract came to an end after a few months, you could sign on for welfare benefits again, and indeed I signed on at the office in Brixton before I worked there, and afterwards too.

The Unemployment Benefit Office wasn't housed in any sort of office building. I think the building had once been a school. That's what it looked like anyway, an old Victorian School. The large hall where people queued to sign on every week might have been the school's assembly room, and the rooms where people worked were probably classrooms at one time.

In some ways it was quite a gloomy place. It was a shabby old building, not renovated, not well-lit, not warm, not comfortable in any way. On the other hand, the staff were mainly young and friendly and that made it not such a bad place to work.

Fortunately for me, my job didn't involve anything awkward. All I did was take fresh claims. When people came in to sign on as unemployed for the first time, I took their details and filled out the forms. I didn't have to do anything like assess their claims, or tell people that they weren't entitled to welfare, or anything like that. Which is just as well, because I'd have hated to do that.

I thought of this office recently when I heard an old Ian Dury record on the radio. Back in the unemployment office, the radio used to play through the tannoy system, and I have a pleasant memory that one day towards Christmas in 1978, the whole office brightened up when Ian Dury's Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick came on. Everyone liked that record. Everyone responded in some way when Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick played. There were clerks behind counters making little shuffling dance steps, or tapping their feet, and other clerks wandering around behind them singing the words under their breath. Everyone was cheerful while this song was on the radio. So I'm grateful to Ian Dury and the Blockheads for that memory.

Scottish Usage - Amn't

2010-09-22T10:31:00.000+01:00

It comes as a complete surprise to me to learn that in standard English there is no such word - or contraction - as amn't. The proper contraction, so I learn, is aren't.

So -

I'm here, amn't I? - Not Standard English

I'm here, aren't I? - Standard English

Well, this is a surprise. In Scotland, amn't is used in normal speech, without any connotations of it being slang, or improper English. I've used the word all my life and didn't even realise it wasn't normal. Although I have been in England for 30 years or so. Obviously I never noticed I was the only one using it.

Possibly this is something everyone else learned at school, while I missed out. Hmm. It may have been the day I bunked off to get Led Zeppelin tickets. Or maybe some day I just failed to turn up. I didn't have a great record in my final years at school.

Unexpected Dentistry

2010-09-12T03:17:00.000+01:00

I'm still in the grip of Final Fantasy 13, and unable to break free. I'm surprised at my own capacity for doing absolutely nothing except play my Playstation. There's starting to be something epic about it.

I had to go the dentist. Not great, as I still have problems travelling there. (Agoraphobia update: not much progress) But maybe it's not so bad. Perhaps it would break me out of my Playstation obsession and get me back to doing other things. Like writing. Which, I believe, I did do at one time.

Travelled on bus to dentist. Slight toothache. I'm assuming this is just a worn filling needing a little attention. However the dentist deems suspicious as he pokes around in my mouth. He takes an X-Ray. Minutes late he announces that the nerve has to come out right away. So now I'm having unexpected root-canal surgery. A poor time in the dentist's chair follows immediately. And I was already having a poor time with having to travel. All in all this was not a great experience.

Some time later I limped back out into Brixton and caught a taxi home, not in the best of moods. Have now retreated back to the Playstation, which is much more agreeable than real life.

A Lack of Productivity

2010-09-02T12:11:00.000+01:00

There has been nothing produced in the Millar household for some time now. Writing has ground to a halt along with all other activity. Dishes remain unwashed, email remains unanswered and bills languish unopened on the carpet.

Why is this? Well, it could be because -

A) Scarlett Johansson has finally accepted my invitation to spend a cozy weekend together.

B) I have been engaged in important charity work for the United Nations.

or

C) I've been slumped on the couch night and day, unable to drag myself away from my playstation.

* sigh *

Activity will resume when I finish Final Fantasy 13. This may take some time.

I notice this game had quite a lot of criticism from fans of the series, but I've never played any of the others so I don't know how it compares. I seem to be unable to stop playing it anyway.

Free Books - German and English

2010-08-25T13:56:00.005+01:00

The German publisher Fischer just sent me some copies of Kalix. Fluch der Werwölfe, which is due to be published any day now. At the start of September, I think. This is their translation of Curse of the Wolf Girl.

I like the cover. It's a really nice book. It's also extremely large, a good deal larger than the English edition. Quite a hefty object in fact. You could really do some damage with this book, if you were annoyed with someone and it was the only object to hand.

I'll give two signed copies of this book away free to any German speakers. If you are German and would like one of these two free copies, then do this -

1) Write a reply here saying you want the book.
2) Write something in German that will convince us you actually are German.
3) Email me your address

And I'll send the first two people to do that a signed copy of the book.

[edit 3.40pm - I've given away the German books now, it's too late to enter. Sorry]

Also on the subject of book giveaways, my publisher Piatkus has a competition to win copies of Curse of the Wolf Girl. Go here to look at the competition. They're giving away ten copies so it is worth entering.

I notice the German edition of the book uses quite an old photograph of me. So if you're planning to visit London from Germany to stalk the handsome young Millar, prepare to be disappointed. I look a lot older now, am ageing fast, and spend most of my time just slumped on the couch watching SpongeBopb SquarePants, occasionally shaking my fist at the modern world. But even that feels like quite an effort these days.

Book Cover Humiliation. For Me.

2010-08-20T11:38:00.000+01:00

I really liked the Piatkus Cover for Lonely Werewolf Girl. Nice fonts, and a picture giving an indication of what a desperate Kalix MacRinnalch might look like. All in all, a very suitable cover. I'm still keen on it.

Unfortunately, as was soon pointed out to me, Piatkus weren't the only people who liked the cover image. So did the designers who produced this -

Well that seemed bad, two books with the same cover image. By the time anyone realised, it was too late to do anything about it. The books were all printed and on their way to the shops. After making enquiries, my publisher learned that external freelancer who designed the cover had used a royalty-free stock image, unknown to them. That was very unfortunate, but there was nothing to do but accept it and move on. Because after all, it's just one of those things.

Well actually, it now turns out to be just two of those things. Witness the third exhibit -

Yes, here we have a third book, using the same cover image. As Madeline puts it on my Facebook page, epic fail. I must admit to feeling quite humiliated about this. And slightly worried about how many other books might turn up with the same image. It's probably lurking on the desks of other cover designers right now, and they're all about to use it. Soon it will be advertising cornflakes. But perhaps I should actually encourage other publishers to use the picture. We might set some sort of record.

Am now off to slump on the couch and play Final fantasy 13. I didn't intend to buy this game, but at the Supermarket they put it in a rack that was right beside me when I was queuing up to pay for my food. So really they tricked me into buying it. I had no choice. I was powerless to just stand in the queue and not put it in my basket.

August 15th - On this day in 1977...

2010-08-15T13:33:00.003+01:00

...I was at a punk gig in the Vortex Club in London. I saw the Slits and the Prefects. (I was surprised to actually find the original advert for this gig, on punk77.co.uk) The Vortex was never as hip a punk rock club as the Roxy, because it opened later, but I still saw a lot of good gigs there.

Off the top of my head, bands I remember seeing in this small venue include Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Rezillos, Generation X, Penetration, The Models (featuring Marco Pirroni) The Slits, The Adverts, Sham 69, Menace, and various others.

The Prefects were a strange band, shambolic even by the standards of the time. I remember them quite fondly, before they disappeared without trace. The Slits went on to have success, though I was never a big fan. I liked them when they were a noisy punk band, but they soon stopped being that. In fact, the only record of the way the Slits sounded in their early days is on the first John Peel session they recorded. That's still a favourite of mine. But by the time they made their first album, they'd changed, and played a lot of different, reggae-influenced music, which I never much enjoyed. I was still young, and only a fan of noisy buzzsaw guitars. I suppose you can't blame a band for wanting to move on from that.

Something I remember about this gig was that after the Slits finished playing, they did an encore and the Prefects came back to join them onstage. The played Louie Louie together, which was unusual. Louie Louie wasn't a song original punk bands played by any means, in fact it would have been seen as rather old-fashioned. But anyway both bands combined for some sort of cacophonous version of it, and it was great. I remember Ari Up, the Slits singer, riding piggy back on the shoulders of the Prefects singer.

Hmmm. More punk rock memories from the 70s. Well at least I'm not having a mid-life crisis or anything.

This is how the Slits sounded in their early days. The song is called Vindictive -

Curse of the Wolf Girl, UK

2010-08-05T08:08:00.001+01:00

Today, the 5th, is the official publication day for Curse of the Wolf Girl in Britain. Or I think it is, I'm a bit vague about the exact publication date. And it seems to have been available for a few days anyway. Hmm. This isn't the most impressive publication announcement ever made. But it's out now anyway. I think this edition should now be available in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as well.

In London, Kalix is on her way to remedial college to try and improve her reading skills, Vex is going too, and Daniel is still pining over Moonglow. Yum Yum Sugary Snacks are refusing to rehearse, Dominil is getting annoyed and Decembrius is wondering what to do with himself. In Scotland, Markus, now thane of the Werewolf Clan, is wondering if he should tell his girlfriend about his habit of cross-dressing. Malveria, Queen of the Fire Elementals, and Thrix, Werewolf Enchantress, have some important fashion engagements coming up, but the werewolf hunters haven't forgotten about them, and neither has Princess Kabachetka, Malveria's deadly rival. And, that, off the top of my head, should be enough to get you started.

Meanwhile I'll draw your attention to this podcast from Erik Carlson, made up of music inspired by me, which starts off with the Sex Pistols and Led Zeppelin, so that can't be bad.

Messages

2010-08-05T07:56:00.000+01:00

I miss my old, simple message board. If you'd like to leave me a message, you can use this page.

Punk Rock Ephermera

2010-07-30T15:35:00.000+01:00

I'm sometimes surprised by the stuff that appears from old boxes I haven't looked in for years. Yesterday I came across these items of punk memorabilia which I'd forgotten about.

There are two issues of Sniffin' Glue, the original punk fanzine. This was founded by Mark Perry in 1976 London, and ran for a year or so. I bought these two issues in 1977, in the King's Road in Chelsea. (I'm fairly sure that's red ink, and not blood, on the cover)

On the cover of one issue there are pictures of Johnny Rotten, The Clash and the Damned. I think it's the magazine staff on the other. I notice that picture was taken by Jill Furmanovsky, who went on to become a well-known photographer.

Sniffin' Glue had a big role in driving the punk rock explosion in Britain. It was certainly an innovation. I'd never seen a fanzine before Sniffin Glue appeared. Soon afterwards there was proliferation of fanzines, though I don't remember buying any others.

My other piece of ephemera is a little Raincoats booklet, from a year or two later. That's not really punk rock, of course, it was post-punk, and very different in a way. But similar in other ways. It was a creative period in Britain, and there were a few years of this sort of creativity which flowed together. Though the all-female Raincoats were nothing at all like the Sex Pistols or the Clash, they wouldn't have flourished, or probably even existed, without the creative energy and freedom created by punk rock in London. Creative energy which got me writing, as I may have said before. Hundreds of times.

I don't remember when I got the Raincoats booklet and there's no date on it. It was probably soon after their first album came out, in 1979. It think it came from the original Rough Trade shop in Kensington Park Road. I saw the Raincoats play on various occasions around that time.

I don't know what to do with these things now. Put them back in the box, I suppose. But I'm glad I found them anyway.

I just did an interview, answering reader's questions, here at JennIRL.

Hello Kitty

2010-07-23T04:16:00.000+01:00

I'm finding Twitter confusing. I didn't realise there's a link you have to press to see if anyone has replied to your posts. I only found out after I asked my friend @Abby about it. I'm still confused about what posts go where.

This brings on some gloom about the modern world. I've been through websites, newsgroups, message boards, forums, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter and God knows what else, when all I really wanted to do was generate a little publicity, sell a few books, and spend the rest of my time watching SpongeBob SquarePants. Was this so unreasonable? Yet now here I am, trapped by technology. Clearly my life has gone wrong somewhere.

* shakes fist at modern world *

I noticed some Hello Kitty bags in the supermarket today, and I was interested in this, because you don't see much Hello Kitty merchandise around here. (Vex, Kalix's friend, is a fan of Hello Kitty) I quite wanted to buy one, and wondered if there was someone I could give it to as a present, but I couldn't think of anyone. My niece is too old, and would be scornful of it. And I couldn't really justify buying it for myself.

Hello Kitty has a little bow around one ear. This looks pleasing, but I'm wondering if it's really practical. Would a bow really stay on a cat's ear? I think it might just fall off all the time.

I was going to finish this blog with the stunning revelation that Hello Kitty was inspired by the broad flat colours of the great artist Matisse, particularly the paper collages he created late in his career. That would have been a good piece of information to pass on. But I've just remembered it wasn't Hello Kitty that was inspired by Matisse, it was Miffy the Rabbit. Hmm. I have no real opinion on Miffy.

Soo Catwoman T-shirt

2010-07-07T03:27:00.000+01:00

Here I am in my new Soo Catwoman t-shirt, which I love dearly. Notice the expression of deep concentration as I struggle with the difficult task of taking a picture and talking on the phone at the same time. Afterwards I had to sit down and rest.

Also in picture - MacBook Pro, box it came in, nice little tartan head-scarf, World Fantasy Award, box of tissues, edge of trusty old Mac iBook, blue mug, assorted books, wicker basket containing socks, TV remote and envelope containing bill for something.

I bought this t-shirt from Catwoman Clothing which is the creation of Dion, Soo's daughter. To paraphrase her daughter's words, very many people have used pictures of Soo Catwoman over the years, on books, magazines, posters, clothes, record sleeves and so on, without either asking permission or paying any money, so now they're reclaiming it.

You can buy various designs of these t-shirts either at Catwoman Clothing's Myspace or Soo Catwoman's website.

Here's another picture of one of their t-shirts -

Chinese Good Fairies

2010-06-23T12:09:00.002+01:00

Here's the cover of the new Chinese language edition of the Good Fairies of New York, to be published at the end of this month in Taiwan. ( ISBN 9789861736518 )

My name in Chinese, I think - 馬汀．米勒

(I'm saying 'Chinese' here, but that's probably not quite accurate, because there are different types of written Chinese.)

Here's some of the blurb from the back cover -

Notice the important words, in brackets in English - Jane Austen, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Sex Pistols. Good choices! I'm pleased to be known as a fan of Buffy, Jane Austen and the Sex Pistols. All three were at the top of their genre.

It also mentions Thraxas. I am at this moment planning to write a new Thraxas story, and publish it as an ebook. This will happen some time, though I'm not certain when.

Mysterious Painted Mark

2010-06-13T12:19:00.000+01:00

Outside the front door of my block there are some small metal covers, all marked 'stopcock.' Recently one of these metal covers has been mysteriously painted blue. I'm very suspicious about this. Why has it happened?

I walked down the block, looking at the other entrances. There are similar small metal covers on the pavement outside other doors. None of them have been painted blue. Or painted at all.

It all seems very suspicious to me. And a little worrying. What can it mean? At present, I'm leaning towards it being a signal to aliens. At this moment, they might be looking at my front door through giant telescopes, and thinking 'that's the place.'

Less likely, but not impossible, assassins have marked my flat for a sudden deadly strike.

Could it be a secret sign, like in The Hobbit, when Gandalf scratches a mark on Bilbo's door, and all the dwarves arrive, thinking Bilbo is an expert treasure hunter? Hmmm. Actually, I've always thought that was quite likely to happen to me one day. I'm sort of expecting to have to help dwarves battle a dragon at some time or other.

It all bodes ill. Secret and mysterious marks outside your house can't be good. I don't like it.

Malveria's Shoe Catastrophe

2010-06-06T11:18:00.000+01:00

Here is a digital painting of Queen Malveria, by Sam Causon, which she's posted on her deviant art page. I am very fond of this image.

An angry Malveria, with flames flickering around her eyes, is complaining to her friend and fashion designer Thrix MacRinnalch that the heel on her new shoes has broken. It was a very upsetting experience for the Queen. Though, as Thrix does point out, she shouldn't really expect a fashion item like these high heels to survive a harsh environment like the Great Volcano. It's an early scene in Lonely Werewolf Girl, and writing that scene went a long way towards setting the tone of the book. I remember being pleased with it at the time.

--

I'm not so pleased that every time I log into Facebook an advert appears on my page inviting me to try a 'Mature Dating Service.' Hum. Is this advert targeted specifically at me? Surely there is some mistake. My targeted ad should say something like 'Hello you handsome young stud, here are some glamorous movie stars who want to meet you.' Must send Facebook a strong complaint about the mix up.

Kalix. Fluch der Werwölfe

2010-05-24T14:12:00.000+01:00

This is the cover for the German edition of Curse of the Wolf Girl, to be published by Fischer in September.

I put the title - Kalix. Fluch der Werwölfe - into Google translator quite enthusiastically, hoping it might translate as Kalix fucks the werewolf. Which would have been a brave choice of title by the publisher. But it turns out that fluch means curse. That does make more sense really.

Summer appears to have arrived. I have celebrated the sunny weather by having several clumsy household accidents, then sitting in front of my Playstation in a gloomy state of mind, wondering why I'm so clumsy. Some genetic condition, perhaps? Well, I suppose there are worse things than being clumsy.

The Handsome Young Millar

2010-05-16T14:45:00.000+01:00

I don't have many pictures of myself when I was younger. No one in my family took photos, and later, when I left home, I didn't own a camera either.

I regret this. I wish I had a picture of me as a long-haired schoolboy in Glasgow, on my way to see Led Zeppelin. And I'd like a picture of myself with red spiky hair, walking along King's Road in London in 1977, but I don't have that either.

I did just find this picture from a year or two later. I think I'm 22 or 23 in it, though I maybe look a bit younger. And quite a nice-looking young chap, though I say it myself.

For some reason, the main thing I think, looking at this picture, is how extremely shy I was. I spent long periods on my own, probably wondering how people got girlfriends. I don't really remember that period of my life as being much fun, really.

But life did become a lot better later. By the time I was older, wrinkled, broken by life's strain and so on, I was at least much more confident. And confidence is the main thing really, so I have learned.

Some Gloom

2010-05-13T14:36:00.000+01:00

I was quite surprised at the strength of my reaction to the General Election. Though the young Millar was, of course, an enthusiastic radical, ready to demonstrate with a placard at a moment's notice, and maybe even storm a barricade - OK I never stormed a barricade - you do get more apathetic as the years go by.

It becomes increasingly appealing to just to lie on the couch, warm and comfy, watching TV or just staring into space, rather than actually worry about politics. I do a lot of staring into space these days. And TV watching. (I did manage to rouse myself to go out and vote.)

But despite my greatly diminished appetite for politics, current affairs, and anything which actually requires thinking, I was moved to outrage when the Liberal Democrats agreed a pact, giving us a Conservative government. It's such a grim prospect. Surely no one who lived through the long years of Margaret Thatcher could ever welcome these people into power again? Urghhhh. I despair.

Neanderthal and Proud

2010-05-08T13:36:00.000+01:00

I was pleased to read that in most humans, up to 4% of our DNA is Neanderthal. A comparison of the genomes of humans and Neanderthals reveals that most people living outside Africa can trace up to 4% of their DNA to a Neanderthal origin, a consequence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens after humans left Africa.

(I'm taking this from this article in The Guardian)

Modern humans and Neanderthals shared a common ancestor but parted company in the evolutionary line some 350,000 years ago. But as a result of subsequent interbreeding, around 60,000 years ago in the Middle East, between 1% and 4% of the DNA in modern Europeans and Asians was inherited from Neanderthals.

I like this. I have sometimes felt sorry for the Neanderthals. They were intelligent. They used tools, and their brains were as large as those of Homo Sapiens. And they made it through millions of years of evolution all the way to only 30,000 years ago, before dying out.

It can't have been much fun, knowing that your species was dying out, and watching it happen, while Homo Sapiens took over. I had a sad image of the last Neanderthal left, feeling very lonely, unable even to find another Neanderthal to talk to.

But this news makes it not so bad. If there was some interbreeding, the last Neanderthal might well have got himself a nice Homo Sapien girlfriend, and passed on his genes. So it wasn't all tragic loss.

Yes, I can definitely feel some Neanderthal inside me.

Neanderthals were shorter than modern humans, with strong cranial features. They were powerful, robust and suited to cold climates. A study suggests some Neanderthals may have had red hair and pale skin.

Well, that sounds like the Scots, actually. I wonder if Neanderthals had also had strong accents and drank too much? Maybe I'm more than 4% Neanderthal. I feel this might explain some things.

Still Here

2010-04-30T13:48:00.000+01:00

I have survived, for the moment, the great volcanic crisis. But I'm sort of expecting it to erupt again, and don't feel entirely safe yet. It's another thing to worry about. I know one day I'll be digging myself out with a shovel.

I suppose the massive destruction and loss of human life would all be worth it if I were to find that it was up to me to re-populate the planet with Scarlett Johansson, the only other survivor. Though I suppose the chances of that happening are quite remote, really.

Ho hum. After Lost in Translation, I am always going to be a little disappointed in life. I know I'm never going to meet Scarlett Johansson in a hotel in Tokyo. She will never rest her head on my shoulder while wearing that really great pink wig. In this rather dingy area of South London, I'm just not going to bump into her. So that will always be a lingering regret.

Back in the real world, I've been trying to format some writing in .epub, a modern ebook format. Having downloaded the necessary software, I've found it not to be as easy to use as I hoped. These things never are. I've surprised myself over the past decade by learning stuff like HTML and CSS and Photoshop and desktop publishing and whatever else I need to get by these days, but I often find it something of a struggle.

There is one football fan forum I visit, where, in the off-topic section, fans sometimes ask for help with computer problems. Unfortunately, the answers from other football fans inevitably include the suggestion 'Try wiping your cock across the screen.' Which, I must admit, did make me laugh the first time I read it. But I don't think this will ever really be that helpful.

Buried Under Volcanic Ash

2010-04-16T23:26:00.002+01:00

I write this blog to say farewell to my readers, before London is buried under a giant cloud of volcanic ash. This, I imagine, is only a matter of time. With the volcano in Iceland still spewing debris into the air, and the enormous cloud heading our way, I have abandoned all hope of survival.

Future generations may dig me out one day, a relic of the past. I hope when the time comes, and the great cloud engulfs me, that I'm not doing anything humiliating. If I'm going to be dug up in the future and displayed as a museum exhibit, I don't want to be captured for eternity in the toilet. I'd like to be engaged in something more dignified. Reading maybe, or playing my playstation. That would be OK. Or a lover's embrace, perhaps. That wouldn't be such a bad way to go.

So, farewell. I will attempt to go out with dignity, like Pliny the Elder who died heroically, attempting to rescue people stranded at Herculaneum by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius which buried Pompeii. I didn't expect to end my days at the hands of an Icelandic volcano, but you can never really predict the future. Damn these Icelanders and their volcanos.

T-Rex

2010-04-11T02:27:00.000+01:00

Last week I did an telephone interview with a Scottish newspaper, the Daily Record, which went well.

I used to deliver newspapers, including the Daily Record, in the morning, when I was at school in Scotland. That was OK, as far as I remember. I didn't mind delivering papers. Possibly there were a few harsh words bandied about when I encountered the milk boys - uncivilised louts, mostly - but nothing too serious.

It does feel like a very long time ago, however. Thinking about my paper round left me feeling old. Gloomy about this, I decided to cheer myself up by immediately buying a T-Rex t-shirt from eBay. And I felt very pleased with this garment, before reflecting that really, you'd have to be quite old to actually buy a T-Rex t-shirt. Hmm. Still, I like my new t-shirt. I put it on then watched some videos of T-Rex on youtube. I have always been a big fan of the band, and Marc Bolan surely remains unsurpassed as the prettiest male pop star in history.

Some Book News

2010-04-04T23:56:00.000+01:00

Soft Skull's re-issue of Dreams of Sex and Stage Diving is now available in the USA. As always, the publisher has produced a nice edition with a good cover. Soft Skull have really done a good job publishing my books in America.

This edition will be available in Britain a little later - August, according to amazon.co.uk

Curse of the Wolf Girl will be published in Germany in September this year, and in Italy in November. I'm not yet certain of the date for Greece.

--

I'm currently playing Prince of Persia on my new PS3. This is rather different from the Prince of Persia PS2 games, but still very good. The Ratchet and Clank PS3 games were great as well. (I should thank the friend who introduced me to both these series of games.) If only these games companies can keep putting out such fine products, I may never have to write, think, socialise, or even leave the house ever again. I quite like the sound of this.

Manholes of Venus

2010-03-27T13:33:00.000Z

Talking about adverts in old Marvel comics in my last blog reminded me of their early 80s adverts for Atari games and consoles. I specifically remember one advert where some kid had a really uncool game system, and everyone mocked him for it.

A little internet investigation locates the advert in question -

Isn't this a tragic tale? Particularly poignant is the cruel way the girl with the blond pony tale rejects Maxy. No doubt Maxy organised the whole games night merely as an excuse to invite her over. But when she finds out he only has inferior games, she storms out, crushing him with the cutting phrase 'Later baby.'

Young Maxy would undoubtedly be devastated. Later in life he'd need therapy for his romantic failures. Even then he'd never really be comfortable around girls.

The blond haired girl does appear again in the last panel. But by then it's obvious she only likes Maxy for his games. You can tell from her body language that's she's not really interested in him. Probably by this time she's secretly dating the lead guitarist in the local speed-metal band.

What really sticks in my mind about this advert is not just the way Maxy is spurned by the woman he loves, it's that the game he's mocked for owning is called 'Manholes of Venus.' At the time, nothing struck me as odd about that name. But now I think about it, it's a very strange title for a kids game. Manholes of Venus? Did whoever wrote the advert realise the various interpretations you could put on that phrase? It sounds like something written by Petronius for the Emperor Nero, detailing events at their latest orgy. I really want to play Manholes of Venus.

At the time, at the start of the 80s, an Atari games console would have seemed to me like an unobtainable luxury item. I never knew anyone who owned one. But I recently bought myself a PS3. Ha. Take that, writing career.

Dunking

2010-03-19T01:41:00.000Z

I've noticed Oreos in the supermarket recently. As far as I know, Oreos only arrived in Britain fairly recently. They didn't used to sell them here. However, I was aware of them before that, because they were often advertised in the American Marvel comics I read when I was young.

I examined at the packet in the supermarket, and wondered about buying them, but was put off because they contain artificial flavours. I'm picky about artificial ingredients (Mostly for no good reason. I have many pointless food phobias.)

But while Oreos might be a fine product, they are associated with behaviour which strikes me as very strange. Their adverts say you should dunk them in milk. I've always regarded this as odd behaviour. Deviant in fact. The notion of dunking a biscuit - or cookie - in a glass of milk makes me vaguely ill. What's the point of dunking a nice biscuit in a glass of cold milk? Ew. You need tea to dunk cookies in. The drink needs to be hot, to be absorbed properly. It should be tea. (Possibly coffee, although I would regard that as letting standards slip a little)

There's no getting round it. Dunking anything in a glass of milk is just weird. But I'm quite suspicious of milk, generally, so perhaps I'm biased here.

Here is the cover for the American edition of Curse of the Wolf Girl, which is due to be published in August.

Pretty Shoes

2010-03-05T13:18:00.002Z

An email arrives from Amazon, advertising shoes. I'm puzzled. I have bought books and games from amazon. But I wasn't expecting them to start sending me adverts for shoes.

I look at the shoes. I don't like them that much. But are mens' shoes ever that nice, really? I never know what would make for a nice pair of mens' shoes.

Browsing some newspaper sites - possibly with shoes on my mind - I noticed this gallery of shoes in The Times, as pictured here. There are a lot of nice shoes here.

As I may have mentioned before, I am useless at describing things like shoes. If shoes appear in any of my books, there's generally very little description. I couldn't accurately describe any of the shoes shown here. I'd need pictures. But I understand it's generally frowned on to put pictures in your novels, for things you can't describe very well.

(Can anyone describe shoes? I'd be interested if anyone could write a good description of any of these shoes)

It must be quite difficult to walk in these high heels. I'd be hopeless at it. I'm clumsy at the best of times. In high heels, I'd break my ankle before I got out the front door.

I don't suppose as many women are as obsessed with shoes as people pretend. But I have met some who are. I sympathise. I generally sympathise with peoples' obsessions, whether it's high heels or model train sets. Go with your obsessions, I say.

In Lonely Werewolf Girl, Thrix and Malveria are obsessed with shoes and fashion. But they don't suffer for it. They're not made to pay any sort of price for their obsession.

The new edition of Lonely Werewolf Girl from Piatkus has now been published in Britain. Also, the publisher sent me cover art from Curse of the Wolf Girl, which I like. I thought that was due to be published in September or October, but I notice it's listed for August on Amazon, in Britain and the USA.

Road Accident

2010-02-21T05:03:00.000Z

I saw, or half-saw, a very unpleasant road accident yesterday. I was walking back from the shops when, in front of me, on the other side of the road, a motorbike crashed into the side of a van. Although this was only about 60 yards ahead of me, I didn't see it that clearly, because it was dark, and I was walking along looking mostly at the pavement at the time.

I got a brief glimpse of the van turning into a driveway and the motorbike crashing quite fast into it. I had the sort of impression that the van crossed the road and turned into the driveway when maybe it shouldn't have, and also the bike might have been going too fast. But it was only a brief impression and I could be wrong. Anyway, there was a startlingly loud bang when it happened, much louder that you'd normally hear in a city traffic accident.

Although I was close, there were other people on the pavement in front of me, and by the time I got there, people were already phoning for an ambulance. Other cars had stopped too, and a crowd gathered immediately. The motorcyclist was lying beside his bike. I'm sure he was very badly injured; it had been such a violent smash and he went right into the side of the van. I did see his leg move so at least he wasn't dead.

I stood there uselessly for a little while. You think you should do something but there was nothing to do, really, but hope the ambulance arrived quickly. When I heard the siren in the distance I walked on, thinking that I wasn't helping anyone by standing there staring at it all. It was such an unpleasant incident. I arrived home feeling very sorry for the bike rider, and hoping he would be all right.

Motorbikes seem so dangerous, especially in cities, with cars turning all the time. As I said, I sort of had the impression the accident wasn't the motorbike's fault. But whoever's fault it was, the biker was severely injured, and the van driver wasn't hurt at all.

I had a motorbike accident when I was 18. It wasn't so bad, though I ended up in hospital. I still have scars on my knee, and a crooked finger, which didn't quite set right after it was broken. When I was 18, I thought it was a good idea to ride a motorbike. Nowadays, nothing would get me on one. It wouldn't surprise me if everyone knows someone who's had a motorbike accident, quite possibly a bad one.

Rough Trade

2010-02-07T13:39:00.001Z

Reading obituaries of the recently departed J D Salinger, I was awestruck by his achievements. After having a big success with Catcher in the Rye he disappeared from view, declining to publish anything else. While doing that, he had various affairs with young women. At the age of 53, he had a long affair with 18-year-old fan, and then he married another woman who was 40 years younger than him.

So basically, Salinger lay around doing nothing very much, living off his royalties, while young women just threw themselves at him. This man is my hero.

I wish I could spend the rest of my life lying on the couch watching SpongeBob SquarePants, meanwhile women are beating a path to my door. It sounds great. It's the ideal life for a writer, never actually having to write anything again. You have to take your hat off to J D Salinger for managing to do this.

--

Every time I make a foray into modern music the results are disappointing. I was listening to Joy Division's Transmission, and thinking, as I generally do 'This is a great record' and also thinking 'Oh dear, that came out a really long time ago, and I remember watching them play it live before it was even released, so I must be getting old' - when I became aware that there was a cover version, by Hot Chip. I am informed that Hot Chip are a popular modern band. I head for youtube to listen to their version. I don't like it. It makes no sense to me. I can't imagine why they made a cover version like that. (But hey, everything else they've recorded might be great, I wouldn't know)

So, that was another disappointing exposure to modern music.

Watching Joy Division on stage at the end of the 70s was a mesmerising experience. I remember buying the single Transmission, at Rough Trade Records, in their original shop in Kensington Park Road, Notting Hill. Which would have been in 1979, I suppose.

That original Rough Trade shop was like a small wonderland at the time. The walls were covered with picture sleeves from singles, which, in original punk days, was a new innovation. You could go into the shop and end up buying things just by seeing what looked good on the walls. They sold fanzines, too, which was also a new innovation. Somewhere, packed away, I still have some original copies of Sniffing Glue, original punk fanzine.

Here's a picture of where the first Rough Trade record shop was, in Kensington Park Road. It's now a toy shop, Cheeky Monkeys. This picture is slightly distorted, possibly because I'm not very good at manipulating Google street view.

Lonely Werewolf Girl in Australia and New Zealand

2010-01-27T10:51:00.000Z

Piatkus's new edition of Lonely Werewolf Girl has now been issued in Australia and New Zealand, by Hachette. This edition will be published in Britain in March. (ISBN 9780749942830)

In the past, I've sometimes had problems with book distribution in Australia, so I'm pleased this book is now there.

The sequel, due out later this year, will be called Curse of the Wolf Girl. (Kalix is on her way to college, to try and improve her reading skills.)

Andi Sex Gang

2010-01-19T11:33:00.002Z

Here's the trailer for Bastard Art, a documentary about my good friend Andi Sex Gang, which is due out this year, directed by Vince Corkadel.

I was pleased to see the trailer, though slightly alarmed to see myself featuring in it. (In fact I have the last word in the trailer) I can't remember what I said about Andi. Some nonsense, possibly. But the rest of the documentary will be good.

I once did a brief reading at a CD launch for Andi, and from the stage I told an anecdote about him. This anecdote, I may say, brought the house down. Sadly, I can't repeat it here, unless I made this one of these blogs with an adults only warning in front of it.

I first met Andi in 1977. We were both squatting near Clapham Junction. Soon afterwards we both moved to Brixton, and have hung around South London ever since. I'm looking forward to seeing Vince's film, though I'm not certain when it will be released.

More Progress

2010-01-15T13:43:00.000Z

I finally bought a phone with a camera. I may be the last person in the country to have one. When the phone arrived I charged it up and sat down to read the instruction book. After one page of this hefty work, I became bored and depressed. The instructions were simply too tedious to read. So I abandoned it, and will just work the phone as best as I can without reading any instructions.

I have already taken my first picture! As you can see, I have swiftly mastered the art of digital photography. Possibly a new career is opening up.

Getting back to the subject of great 70s music - weren't we talking about that - no? - I was sure someone mentioned it - here are Roxy Music performing their first single, Virginia Plain, on top of the Pops in 1972. I saw Roxy Music play in Glasgow, at the start of their career, when Eno was still in the band. That was brilliant. Although I would have been too young at the time to appear in the audience with full glam-rock outfit and make-up. But that probably wouldn't have been a good idea in Glasgow at the time anyway.

Black Perfumed Scarf

2010-01-07T10:38:00.000Z

I wrapped up well and struggled out into the snow. Once outside I realised that my neck was really cold. It struck me that I needed a scarf. I can't remember that happening before. I can't remember when I last wore a scarf. I wasn't even sure I had one.

I retreated indoors and rummaged around in the wardrobe. To my surprise, I came across a nice black scarf. I don't remember ever seeing this garment before. I've no idea where it came from.

Pondering the matter - quite suspiciously - I noticed that the scarf smelled of perfume. Quite nicely, in fact. This was odd. Where has this mysterious perfumed scarf come from? I'm baffled. Did some lover storm out in the huff, leaving the garment behind? Always possible, given my poor track record in relationships. Right this moment she might be thinking 'What a useless boyfriend he was. And he stole my scarf.'

But I can't remember anything like this happening. It's a mystery. How long would perfume last on a scarf anyway? Not long, I wouldn't have thought. Or maybe it would, if it was high quality merchandise. Anyway, I'm now wearing the scarf. And probably smelling slightly more perfumed than usual.

London is thickly covered with snow. This is a big pain. I have purchased Tamanohikari Super Premium Ginjo Pure Rice Sake over the internet, and am warming myself with this fine Japanese product.

Extreme Piggy-Back Terror

2009-12-29T13:34:00.001Z

My new wi-fi has certainly changed my life. Because of it I've developed two new damaging obsessions. I'm obsessed with how fast it is, and I'm obsessed about anyone piggy-backing on my connection. Previously I never had to worry about these things. Now I'm checking it all the time. So it's a big step forward.

The speeds seems to be OK. But, to my horror, while browsing through the rather complicated logs and settings in my router, it did seem to me that there were other people using my connection. Another computer, and also an iPhone.

I thought I'd set a password, but apparently this wasn't good enough. People had already invaded my network. I was briefly terrified, and felt unable to cope with this cyber terrorism. I had a vision of some Jack Nicholson-type character smashing through my door with an axe, crying 'You'll never stop us using your wi-fi connection!'

When I calmed down, and realised this probably wasn't going to happen, I was annoyed. I mean, these people can't be far away, can they? Is someone in my block using their damned iPhone on my connection?

* Shakes fist at fellow residents *

Considered knocking on everyone's door, demanding to know who the culprits were, possibly coming to blows with suspicious parties. Eventually decided against it.

Subsequently, with much furrowing of the brow, I learned how to make my connection more secure, a complicated process involving mac address filters, Wpa2 and suchlike. So this was all very stressful. But I think it's secure now. The other computer and the iPhone are no longer appearing on my connection, or in the log

Checking the internet, I notice that all these security measures can be broken by other people if they're determined enough. Sigh. So I will no doubt be checking the whole thing obsessively for the foreseeable future. Go wireless. It's a boon to OCD sufferers. Hours of new stuff to worry about.

In-between fighting off these cyber-terrorists I noticed the sink in the bathroom was looking quite dirty. Wondered about cleaning it. I'm not a great house-cleaner. Eventually decided to make an attempt. Sprayed it with cleaner and rubbed it with a cloth. This had little effect. Was frustrated. Why didn't it work? What's the point of selling stuff that claims to clean sinks if it doesn't do it when you need it? May have to scrub harder.

Injured by Slippers

2009-12-19T11:29:00.002Z

I've always avoiding buying or wearing slippers. Even when the temperature plummeted I've know that if I ever wore slippers, something bad would happen. Mainly, I'd turn immediately into an old man, shuffling around, probably complaining about stuff.

Glamorous movie stars would cease to visit me. I would no longer be welcome at London's most fashionable nightspots.

However. Right now it's really cold in London. Walking round my flat, my feet are cold. I tried wearing shoes but I don't like wearing shoes indoors. At the supermarket, in their small clothes section, I noticed some slippers. I looked at them sort of longingly, thinking it would be nice to have warm feet, but I hesitated. I knew it was a big decision. I almost resisted, thinking 'I will never wear these comfy tartan footwear items' when I noticed that one of the pairs of slippers was sort of moccasin-shaped. Nice and fluffy inside, but not really looking too much like slippers really. If challenged, I could possibly deny they were slippers at all.

So, furtively, checking no one was looking, I slipped them in my basket, then headed for a checkout point. I felt quite guilty about the whole thing. On the other hand, London is knee-deep in snow these days, and my flat does suffer from drafts.

Back home I put on the slippers. They were very warm. And did look quite like moccasins. Not too slipper-like. I thought I might get away with it. Possibly I would not turn into an old person overnight.

However. There was a slight feeling of discomfort in one foot. I'd bought my normal size, but they felt a bit tight round the toe. Maybe because they were so fluffy inside. I ignored this, because my feet were very warm. This turned out to be a terrible mistake. When I took them off at the end of the day I noticed my toe was quite sore, and next morning it was even sorer. For some reason , wearing this slightly-too-tight slipper seemed to have crushed my toe into my foot, causing pain in the joint and tendon, and this pain didn't just go away as I might have expected. Next morning my foot was really painful, all the way up the tendon.

I stared morosely at my feet. Now not only were they cold, they were sore too. I limped around the house the whole day, complaining about stuff. I knew it was my own fault really. I knew bad things would happened if I ever wore slippers. Now I'm practically crippled. How could an overly-snug slipper cause such damage? I may never walk properly again. Damn my lack of self-control.

Staggering Technological Advances

2009-12-12T09:27:00.002Z

This week the Millar household has seen great technological progress. (as I've mentioned before, I am always very far behind with technology.) Firstly, I upgraded my internet connection to 20Mb, and second, I got a wireless connection.

I notice - because I've been obsessively checking - that the speed varies a lot. The fastest it's been is 18Mb but sometimes it's only 10Mb. That seems OK anyway.

It does strike me that I probably have no real use for this. My previous connection was 2Mb. That didn't cause me any problems. It was fast enough for everything I did. What do I need this extra speed for? Nothing, as far as I can see. But perhaps it will be useful in the future. Maybe for downloading my robot-cyber-fantasy-bride, or something like that, when technology has advanced some more.

Though the speeded up connection didn't cause any problems, the wireless connection wasn't so easy. I told my internet provider I was a Mac user. They said they'd sent me their router, but don't come complaining to them if it didn't work. Fine. I appreciate your terrific customer service.

But it wasn't too hard to connect. There was a tricky moment, where things hovered in the balance, and my computer seemed to be about to give up the attempt, but the Mac airport assistant rode to the rescue. Now I have this wireless connection, I can move around. But I expect I'll never move anywhere, and will remain sitting at the desk in the exact same spot I always sit in.

I was pleased of having some new technology to play with just two nights ago, when I was woken by an extremely troubling dream. It was so troubling I had to get out of bed. This very rarely happens. I'm not prone to bad dreams. But this was so bad I got up and sat at my desk, feeling tired, but not really wanting to go back to sleep in case I got the dream again. I wonder why that happened? I don't remember being quite so troubled by a dream before.

I don't often remember my dreams. Although only a few weeks ago I did have an had a erotic dream so vivid that I woke up quite astonished, thinking, wow, I wish I could dream like that more often.

This graphic sex dream involved a woman I know, but have never had any romantic involvement with. Later I was sort of tempted to mention it to her, but decided against it. Mentioning it might seem creepy. Or is that a mistake? Might it be a compliment? Is there any sort of established etiquette? I might be having an autistic moment here. It's probably the most obvious thing in the world that you shouldn't mention things like that. But I sort of wanted to.

Probably I just shouldn't mention it. If you are socially incompetent - and I'm fairly socially incompetent - it's best to err on the side of caution. Probably friends don't want to hear you've been dreaming about them. But these tricky social problems will melt away when the robot-cyber-fantasy-brides get here.

Shot Full of Holes

2009-11-29T11:17:00.003Z

I saw my doctor last week and while I was there I asked him about flu vaccination. I'm still worried about being carried off by swine flu. Unfortunately, while supplies of the swine flu vaccine have started arriving, so far they're only being given to 'priority cases.' Like pregnant women, and infants, and people with health problems. (But I'm an author. Shouldn't I be ahead of these people?)

However, the doctor did tell me that anyone could get a seasonal flu shot, protecting you against other sorts of flu. I sort of grunted, and this grunt meant - 'OK I'll think about it for a few weeks and probably not do anything about it.'

I thought I was being quite clear but strangely the doctor misinterpreted this grunt and immediately pulled out a syringe, and told me to roll up my sleeve. Before I knew what was happening I was inoculated against other forms of flu.

I was perturbed. I don't like medical surprises. I like a long time to think about things. I don't like to take rash actions, like for instance, getting vaccinated when I wasn't expecting it. Afterwards I trudged round the shops wondering what dreadful symptoms the flu shot might cause, and counted myself lucky to make it home before being completely incapacitated by harmful side effects.

But I survived the experience. So I suppose that's something anyway. While I'm still susceptible to swine flu, I am at least protected against various other forms. I've only had flu twice in my life. Readers of my blog may remember that the second time was just last year, and it involved suffering on a scale rarely seen in this world. I endured a terrible period of illness when I was unable to do anything except lie on the couch and watch SpongeBob SquarePants.

* That's what you do all the time anyway. *

Well yes, but this time I was feeling a lot worse than normal. I was sore, feverish, and I felt very sorry for myself, and this feeling sorry for myself continued long after the other symptoms departed.

Here, for no real reason except I like Japanese electronic music with female singers, are Hangry and Angry. They just made a good album, Sadistic Dance.

Really, I’d like to walk around looking like that. For a day or two anyway. It would certainly make life interesting.

Wikipedia tells me that 'Hangry & Angry is a Japanese pop duo ….the group is a collaboration with a Harajuku fashion store, and serves to promote various products, including stuffed toys fashioned after the members.'

OK, nothing artistically dubious about that. It's credible enough for me. I wonder where I can get the stuffed toys?

Ruby and the Stone Age Diet

2009-11-21T06:44:00.003Z

Softskull have just sent me some copies their new edition of Ruby and The Stone Age Diet. The official re-issue date is 1st January, though I've noticed that Softskull often get my books into shops earlier than the release date.

I'm pleased this book is now back in print. Unlike certain other books among my backlist, which tend to make me bury my face in my hands, wailing Did I really write this?, I've always liked Ruby and the Stone Age Diet. Nice new cover from Softskull too.

I remember when I wrote it, at the end of the 80s, I lived in a bedsit in South London. That was unusual, because I'd been squatting, then sharing a flat, and didn't really expect to end up in a tiny little bedsit, which was one room, with a bed taking up most of the space, with a cooker in one corner and a sink in the other. But I had to move house very quickly, due to the craziness of the people I was living with before that. (Some of who's exploits I mentioned in an earlier blog, which was reprinted as an intro to the new edition of Lux the Poet) So I just ended up there. It wasn't a great place to live. Still, I wrote Ruby there, before moving on, so it wasn't a complete waste of time.

I always get a box of these books. I should give a signed copy away as a prize for something (Lawyers tell me that my former practice of offering them as bribes for sex may be illegal) But I can't think of any sort of competition that wouldn't be tedious. Well they can just sit in the box for a while, I suppose. Eventually I always give them away.

Mac Problems / Dolltopia

2009-11-14T13:14:00.005Z

My new Macbook broke down! I count this as among my most traumatic experiences. It started running slowly, and generally not working very well. Several long calls to the Apple helpline failed to rectify the situation. Eventually I was forced to take it to the Apple Store in Regent Street, where they diagnosed a faulty hard drive. They had to fit a new one. I had to leave it there and then pick it up the next day.

Well, my computer is now working fine again, but the whole experience has shaken my faith in Apple somewhat. Their support was good, and and they did repair it very quickly - it was still under warranty - but even so, you don’t want your new computer dying after only two months. I am somehow not expecting this new Macbook to last as well as my old iBook, which marched on unstoppably for 6 years, before unfortunately becoming too out of date to keep using

After leaving my laptop for repair, I trudged mournfully down Regent Street, feeling like the world was against me. In fact, I was crushed by the whole experience. There was a man in some sort of costume outside Hamleys Toy Shop, calling out friendly greetings to everyone that passed. I scowled at him in a hostile manner, and felt annoyed that ‘Hamleys’ doesn’t have an apostrophe, which it surely should have.

Fortunately, I had copies of all my computer files, so I didn’t lose anything, apart from some recent email. Perhaps that’s not so bad. I can use it as an excuse for my long, long backlog of unanswered email, about which I have a permanent feeling of guilt.

Later I was cheered by the arrival of Dolltopia, by Abby Denson. I really enjoyed this graphic novel. I contributed a few sentences to the blurb on the back cover, saying how much I liked it. Which is something I very rarely do, due to my pathological laziness, and general misanthropy.

Right now there’s a big rainstorm here. I like that. The gutters in the road outside always get clogged, and water pours down the hill in a big river. It's entertaining.

Never Mind the Bollocks

2009-11-08T10:00:00.007Z

I started to write a blog a while ago - 'On this day in 1977, the 28th October, Never Mind the Bollocks by the Sex Pistols was released.' But then I became distracted and didn't get round to it. But I'm still sort of thinking about the Sex Pistols anyway, because they were such a big influence on me.

I don't think I'd have ever got up the confidence to write novels if it hadn't been for the Sex Pistols. My school, a Glasgow comprehensive, was reasonably good at teaching grammar, spelling, sentence construction, and so on. Which is a good thing. If you want to write, it helps if you can put a sentence together properly. But my school was very bad at giving working class kids the confidence to do anything with it. I can safely say that I was never encouraged by anyone at school to be creative in any way. At the time, authors, like proper rock musicians, seemed like a different class of people.

It might not ever have occurred to me to try writing books myself, if the Sex Pistols hadn't come along. The punk rock spirit of do-it-yourself, and having confidence in your own abilities, which they brought with them, were very influential. Life-changing, in fact. I started writing immediately, and this spirit of punk rock lingered in Britain for a long time afterwards. Long enough for me to still be thinking about it in 1984, when I wrote Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation.

I bought Never Mind The Bollocks on the day it was released. I already had the four singles it contained, also bought when they were first released. I still have them, apart from my original copy of Anarchy in the UK, from November 1976, which was unfortunately stolen a long time ago, in one of the many squats I lived in in Brixton at the end of the 70s.

Another memory of Never Mind the Bollocks - when it was released, there was actually a court case. Some retailers in Nottingham were prosecuted for obscenity, for displaying the album cover, because it said 'bollocks' Even at the time, everyone knew this was ridiculous. Why the police and public prosecution service ever got involved in it remains a mystery to me. When the case was thrown out of court, as it inevitably was, they'd succeeded only in making themselves look stupid. Though they did give the Sex Pistols a huge amount of free publicity.

The word bollocks has never really been an obscenity, being only quite a minor expletive, though it does remain quite popular in the Millar household. It is, for instance, often uttered during the course of my many household accidents, like smashing plates, or kicking over the teapot which I've carelessly left on the floor. It was said repeatedly - with some harsher words thrown in - in the aftermath of the recent 'getting out of the bath' disaster, an incident too distressing for me to give a full account. (But how, after a life-time of carefully protecting my groin, can I suddenly whack myself in the balls? It defies belief.)

On these occasions, there is nothing to do but retire to the couch, and play on my PlayStation. I've been doing this a lot recently, having discovered that there were two sequels to Prince of Persia. Am currently swashbuckling my way through Warrior Within, though I've come to something of a standstill, due to repeatedly being slaughtered in single combat by the Empress of Time. But this is not really a fair fight. I mean, the Empress of Time looks like this -

And it's quite distracting. The Empress's underhand tactics of revealing huge cleavage are very off-putting. I'm sure this is the reason she keeps defeating me. I may be stuck on this level for some time. And when you consider that the Prince of Persia, earlier in the game, also has to fight Shahdee, who looks like this -

- then you can see that the whole thing is very difficult. But perhaps the Prince is going about things in the wrong way? Surely he should not be engaging in combat with these women? Were it me, I'd try and reach some sort of understanding, and would not be waving a sword at them.

Menstruation ( hooray! )

2009-10-20T10:04:00.005+01:00

I notice a prominent advert for tampax on my Myspace page. 'Discover the Latest Tampax Pearl with the New Pearl Protect System.' I have no idea what this is. But I hope it makes the world a happier place.

It reminds me of something I was thinking about recently, whilst slumped on my couch. I do my finest thinking there. No, that's not true at all. I just lie semi-comatose, watching TV. Often I watch American sit-coms, which I generally like. Or dislike them less than British sitcoms, maybe.

I notice that anytime menstruation is mentioned in an American sitcom, all the men panic. They cover their ears, or even run out the room. It's weird. I've seen this repeated in various programmes. Some woman mentions her period, and the men start panicking, completely unable to cope.

Do men ever really do this? Do any of them really get that upset? Not in my experience. It's difficult to see why anyone would get so upset.

I wonder why this scene is so often repeated? I've never seen it in a British sitcom (On the other hand, I haven't seen anything funny in one either, for about the past twenty years)

I suppose it's just done for comic effect. It seems like a fairly lazy way of raising a laugh, really. And not really liable to make women feel good about themselves if it's implied that something they experience every month is deeply repulsive to the other half of the population. So I was on the brink of becoming self-righteous about this, when I realised that... hmm... that actually, I wrote a scene like that once too. In a Thraxas book.

In Thraxas and the Elvish Isles, at the vital moment in an all-male card game, Makri, female barbarian and waitress, starts talking about her period. The men all become uncomfortable, and indeed, some of them panic completely. Which did lead to a funny scene. My thinking at the time, I suppose, was that in the mediaeval, and quite religious society, in which Thraxas lives, menstruation was a taboo subject, and when the female barbarian blithely starts talking about it, the men can't cope.

It seemed funny at the time. But maybe I shouldn't have written it. I didn't realise I'd be joining in with some global campaign to make menstruation seem like a bad subject. If I had realised, I'd probably have written something different. (It's time for the National Menstruation Festival! Bring party hats!)

Hum. Oh well, in Queen Vex, sequel to Lonely Werewolf Girl, Daniel buys the contents of a shopping list, including tampons, for his female friend Moonglow, and he manages not to panic, or even comment adversely.

I'm currently editing this book. And also trying to think of a new title. It's still on course to come out next year.

Spell-check fact - On spell-checking this blog, I found I spelled 'menstruation' wrongly every time. Ha. Well, it's quite a tricky word.

Athens / SpongeBob

2009-10-11T13:19:00.003+01:00

I've been reading this, The Athenian Institution of the Khoregia, by Peter Wilson, both for interest and research. It has a vast amount of information about ancient Athenian theatre, presented in such detail I'd have difficulty finding it anywhere else. I'm now stuffed full of facts about Sophocles and Aristophanes. It's an excellent historical work. But it is a little dry. I can only manage so much at a time.

When my head starts to hurt from Athenian theatre research, I slump on the couch and watch SpongeBob. I just saw an episode called Wigstruck. (I can't believe I actually know the title of an episode) It made me laugh, quite a lot. SpongeBob is on Nickelodeon, but I think it may be wasted on the young. Possibly you have to be advancing in years, defeated by life, wearied by toil, to fully appreciate Spongebob.

About 2 a.m., still suffering from complicated ancient Greek theatre research, I'm reading some online newspapers. I look at some reports from fashion shows. I generally like pictures of fashion, despite being the scruffy sort of person who gets followed round supermarkets by suspicious security guards. Unfortunately I'm useless at writing about clothes. I find writing a description of any item of clothing completely impossible. I regret this. I'd like to be able to give a neat little description of a dress, but it's not one of my strong points.

In amongst a lot of interesting and elegant apparel I notice this, from Milan, by Dsquared2. Nice transparent coat. Though it's possible - there is a slight chance - that I'm more impressed by the model than the coat. Well, it is 2 a.m. Actually, with her yellow bikini and brown hair, she's not a bad match for SpongeBob. She'd cheer me up at two in the morning, no doubt, were she knock on my door, maybe looking for directions, having taken the wrong turn on her way to a fashion show.

"Welcome to my shabby part of South London. Would you like some tea? Nice coat. Nice shoes too."

But this is not really likely to happen. I return to my Athenian research. Hmm. I must get out more.

Flash Drive

2009-09-28T15:24:00.003+01:00

Here is a picture of me holding my complete works, loaded on to a flash drive. It's the first one I've owned. I'm always a long way behind with technology.

These are so ubiquitous now that I didn't even have to go to a computer shop to buy it. I got it in the local 'We-Sell-Everything' shop, where it was sandwiched between alarm clocks, novelty mugs and plastic food containers. Last month I bought a cheap kettle from the same shop.

I put everything I've ever written on the flash drive. That's a lot of books, including Thraxas. Then I attached it to my key-ring, and walked around feeling pleased with myself. I have my complete works on my key-ring. I wasn't expecting that to happen in 1984, when I was writing Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation on an old typewriter.

Later I became worried about literary spies stealing my works in progress, also copied onto the drive. So I downloaded encryption software, learned how to use it, and encrypted it all. Then I walked around feeling even more pleased with myself. Whilst I may always be behind with technology, I refuse to give up the struggle, not wanting to fall out of touch with the modern world. Next target, film myself reading and put it on Youtube. That sounds difficult, but it's time the world was exposed to my impenetrable Scottish accent.

What? £42 for a book?

2009-09-12T11:36:00.001+01:00

Last week I was staggered - appalled - to find myself paying £42 for a book I needed for research. I mean, £42 for a book? $68? €48? What's the world coming to? Is it normal for academic books to cost that much? It came as quite a shock, and led to me shuffling round the kitchen muttering about greedy publishers, my impending financial ruin, and the imminent collapse of society. £42 for a book. It's not right.

( I'm not going to say what this book was, fearing that international literary spies may be trying to steal my ideas. Hmm. Must check the phone again for bugging devices. )

Scotland surprised me by winning against Macedonia, thereby reviving our hopes of qualifying for the World Cup in South Africa. Unfortunately, despite a plucky performance against Holland, Scotland lost the next game, and have therefore failed to qualify. Sigh. Scotland used to have such good football players, but we don't any more. Well, I suppose it will give me more time to read my £42 book.

Night Shift

2009-09-01T14:24:00.003+01:00

Have now watched every episode of Claymore anime, and read every episode of Claymore manga. Afterwards, found myself suffering from Claymore withdrawal symptoms. I'd really like more adventures of these silver haired warriors.

Disconsolate, and still wanting more Claymore, I wander into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I put on the radio. Unexpectedly, Led Zeppelin are playing. Am immediately cheered. I find myself playing air guitar, not something I do that often. Continue listening, and play more air guitar. Finish off with a final flourish of air-drums, something I don't think I've ever done before.

Find myself cheered. OK, I might have finished Claymore, but there will be other manga and anime. I can survive the crisis.

Am generally cheered up by Led Zeppelin. Apart from in 1985 when they played at Live Aid. They played in Philadelphia, and that was broadcast live in Britain about 1 A.M. Unfortunately, at one o'clock in the morning in 1985, I was working in a warehouse just south of Waterloo bridge, doing night shifts, carrying heavy mail bags, in a really, unpleasant job. Urgh. That was such a bad job. Long, long night shifts, in that warehouse. I'd be exhausted, and sleep all day, and work through the night. It doesn't take long doing that till you become quite confused about what day of the week it is.

At that time I'd written Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation. I'd found a literary agent for it, who was enthusiastic. I thought that she'd find a publisher for it soon enough, but it took her three and a half years. (That's not a criticism of the agent. She proved to be very dedicated, and didn't give up on it, fortunately for me.) So while I was struggling around in that warehouse at night, loading heavy sacks into trucks - dimly aware that there was some big music concert going being broadcast on the radio - I had a nagging feeling that really I ought to have been published by then. Probably because of that, I've never been able to remember Live Aid / Band Aid very fondly. (By all accounts, including their own, Led Zeppelin didn't perform very well at Live Aid, being plagued by sound problems.)

I gave up that job with great relief, and found work as a clerk for the council, which was better, though it didn't pay so well. I think I was there for two years before my agent finally found a publisher for Alby Starvation.

I can see two solutions to the 'no more Claymore' problem. One, hunt for more Anime to make up for it. Two, throw myself into my work. Hmmm. I can see which way this is going.

Pictures of Me

2009-08-11T12:34:00.003+01:00

My friend Kate is visiting London, from San Francisco. It was great to see her. I met her in a pub at Clapham Common. She pointed her iPhone at us, and took this picture.

Later I sat at my new computer and became confused about the iPhoto application.

Finally I worked out how to use it. Aha!

Then Buffy arrived to protect me. (And she brought me a hat!)

(Buffy figurine from www.buffycollection.com)

Note the bare wall behind me. It looks like I'm sitting in a prison cell.

Something just thumped through the letterbox. Ah. Three copies of the Italian contract for Queen Vex. And a new Buffy comic. Both good.

New Computer

2009-07-30T11:54:00.003+01:00

I have a nice new MacBook. You'd be surprised how old my other Mac was. It was very out of date. Internet videos struggled, froze and jammed. But now I'm equipped to fully appreciate the modern world. Am doing this mainly by watching old glam and punk rock videos from the 70s on YouTube. Yes, it's a big step forward.

My other Macs have generally worked when I plugged them in, which was helpful. So, naturally, this one didn't. It failed to connect to the internet properly. I responded by looking disappointed, and saying "Why aren't you working? Start working properly." Then I sat and looked hopeless for a while, mumbling sadly to myself about how difficult everything is.

When this failed to produce results I phoned the Mac helpline, and to their credit, they sorted it out for me quickly. But it was a tense moment.

My old Mac, while very slow by today's standards, remains quite precious to me. I wrote a lot of Thraxas on it, and Lonely Werewolf Girl, and Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me. I also wrote Queen Vex on it, the sequel to Lonely Werewolf Girl. This is more or less finished now. But don't get too excited, it will be around a year till it comes out. Which I find frustrating, but that's standard practice in publishing. However, the good news is that's it's already contracted to be published in Britain, the USA, and Germany, and the Italian contract should be sorted out soon.

Till I transfer over various files and software, I'm writing this blog on google documents. So it's not really even on my computer. Is that cloud computing? Hmm. Also alarmingly modern. I consider taking a little picture of myself with the camera in the computer, and putting it here. But when I check the picture, I think it makes me look old. Must be something wrong with the camera. Possibly I should phone the Mac helpline again. "The camera on my MacBook is making me look old. How can I fix this?"

Good Neighbour

2009-07-23T12:48:00.004+01:00

I just received a box of books from my Greek publisher - Κάλιξ: Η γυναίκα λυκάνθρωπος. I'll give one of these away to the first person from Greece who wants one. Leave a message here, and email me your address, and I'll sign the book and send it to you.

I was worried by recent 'good neighbour day' or something like that, in which people were encouraged to meet their neighbours. Maybe even share a meal with them, I think. Am appalled by the thought. If I wanted to meet my neighbours, I wouldn't live in London. I rely on Londoners' mutual suspicion and hostility to prevent me from having to talk to any of these people.

Nervous in case some neighbour might knock on my door, asking me to share a meal, I lie on the couch, listening to the New York Dolls.

A new bad girl
Moved in on my block
I gave her my keys
Said 'Don't bother to knock.'

Risk a quick glance out the window, hoping some bad girls might be moving into my block. No sign of any. I suppose it's not very likely really. Life is rarely like a New York Dolls song. Probably when I get carried off to hospital with swine flu, there won't be a rock'n'roll nurse there either.

French Book

2009-07-13T21:15:00.004+01:00

The French edition of The Good Fairies of New York - Les Petites Fées de New York - was published recently, and I have some copies from the publisher, Éditions Intervalle. Again, I'll sign one of these French copies and give it away free to the first person from France to say they want it. Just leave a reply here, and then email me your address.

I have many foreign editions of my books lurking on my shelves, I should give away more of them. Or actually organise myself to sell them from my website. I also have some spare sets of the Lux and Alby comic, which I've been meaning to put on sale for years. However I haven't got round to it. I'm hopeless at getting round to doing things. Though I am skillful at sitting on the couch watching TV. There is nothing at all wrong with my TV watching technique. I can also handle a whole stack of Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics with enormous skill.

Brighten up your reading experience! Who would not enjoy one of these knitted cat bookmarks? There's no point denying it, you know you'd like one. From knitted toys.blogspot

ΚΑΛΙΞ - Werewolf in Greece

2009-06-24T16:41:00.008+01:00

Lonely Werewolf Girl has now been published in Greece, by Kedros, as ΚΑΛΙΞ Η ΓΥΝΑΙΚΑ ΛΥΚΑΝΘΡΩΠΟΣ. Which would translate as Kalix the Werewolf Woman. Or, Kalix, Female Werewolf, I suppose. So I'm pleased to have Kalix venturing into new territory.

London is pleasantly warm and sunny and I've been wandering around in shorts and a Led Zeppelin t-shirt, probably looking ridiculous. Last summer I got a slight tan on my legs, and was quite excited by this rare occurrence. I'm always quite pale.

I'm still enjoying Dollhouse, now up to episode six here. Last night there were new revelations in the plot, and Eliza Dushku had this great fight with the FBI agent. But, as I predicted, no one else I know is watching this programme here, it being rather hidden away on the SciFi channel.

I bought the fantasy stamps, as mentioned in my last blog. They're good stamps. (but what will I ever do with them?)

Stamps / Germany

2009-06-16T03:53:00.004+01:00

I don't think I've ever bought any special stamps before. My personal history is entirely stamp-collecting-free. But I did just notice these, advertised for release today. Mythical stamps from the Royal Mail. Featuring fairies, dragons, and other things. I would quite like to have these stamps.

Hmm. How high up the geekiness scale would it be to buy a sheet of stamps because they feature fairies and pixies? Quite high up, I imagine. Well, I'd still like them. Examination of the Royal Mail website reveals that there's a presentation pack with writing in it, by Neil Gaiman. I will investigate in the local post office, and see if they have them.

Lonely Werewolf Girl has now been published in Germany, by Fischer, under the title of Kalix. Werwölfin von London. Here it is at the publisher's website and at amazon.de.

I have a few copies of this book. I'll sign one of these and give it away free to the first person from Germany to say they want it. Just leave a reply here, and then email me your address.

Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na

2009-06-04T11:03:00.004+01:00

Am shuffling round in kitchen, making pot of tea. Put on sport radio channel. Distressed to find them talking about 'Britain's Got Talent.' I don't want to hear about this, I want to hear about football. Change to Radio 5. But they are also talking about 'Britain's Got Talent.' There seems to be no escape. I have no interest in this topic. Why is it everywhere? What's wrong with these people? Argh. Even the most assiduous efforts to ignore it seem doomed to fail, you just can't click on a news website or turn on the radio but someone's talking about it. Argh... kill, smash. There, you've made me mention your damned programme. Are you happy now?

Now in bad mood with modern world, retreat to Cozy Powell in 1974. 'Na na na na (na na na na na) which contains the lyrics -

I know you get your kicks playing Hendrix licks
You're the wizard of Wembley Central
You're the J.S. Bach of Belsize Park
But me I'm just plain mental.

Who wrote this lyric? I mean, it's genius.

I've now seen three episodes of Dollhouse, and am still reasonably enthusiastic. I do like Eliza Dushku. Also, a new season of House just started here. It's a relief to find some TV programmes I want to watch, because I need excuses not to got on with writing, and I don't seem to have any new Playstation games at the moment. Maybe I should play through Tomb Raider Underworld again. I enjoyed that.

And now, I have my polling card, so I'm off to vote in the European Election.

A New British Edition of Lonely Werewolf Girl

2009-05-21T21:31:00.003+01:00

Here's the cover for Piatkus's edition of Lonely Werewolf Girl, due to be released in Britain in October, I think. I like this cover a lot. Meanwhile I'm working away on the sequel, which is due to be released next year.

I watched the first episode of Dollhouse and I enjoyed it. I wasn't sure if I'd like it, even though it's a Joss Whedon creation. Buffy the Vampire Slayer was the best thing ever, but I wasn't really keen on Firefly. Dollhouse started off well though. I thought it was really entertaining, and I still love Eliza Dushku.

Dollhouse was shown on the Sci-Fi channel. I don't think all that many people have that channel in the UK, so I don't know if it will become popular here. Possibly no one I know will watch it.

Plumbing Terror

2009-05-15T11:35:00.001+01:00

Two nights ago, at 10 in the evening, I turned on the hot tap in the kitchen. Then it got stuck. It wouldn't go off. Nothing I could do would make the tap turn off.

This was a problem. The hot tap comes from the gas boiler, so the gas was going as well, heating up the water. Which, I could see immediately, would swiftly lead to overheating - gas explosion - entire block of flats destroyed - Millar lost in tragic household accident - Buffy videos scattered over wide area - couldn't find enough of his body to give him a proper burial - identified by dental records - sequel to Lonely Werewolf Girl never completed - weeping crowds at memorial service - and all in all, this was quite worrying.

I couldn't find the stopcock to turn off the water. It did strike me, after a while, to turn the gas off at the mains. Though even that was worrying, and again made me fear for gas explosions. Everything to do with the gas heating boiler makes me think of gas explosions. (In a previous flat, the pilot light used to go off. Pressing the button to light it again, I was always nervous, and expected the worst.)

After the gas was off I called an emergency plumber. I was quite surprised at myself for being organised enough to do this. And, afterwards, rather perturbed at the huge expense. These people don't come cheap. Still, he did arrive, around midnight, and managed to turn the tap off.

All in all, this was an unhappy experience. Have abandoned all thoughts of writing, and will lie on the couch reading comics.

I have new Buffy comics. But I'm not quite satisfied with these. I also have a big bundle of manga, and much of this manga is full of great art, wit, invention, humour and so on. But the Buffy comics… well, they're just comics really. They don't really match up to how great the TV series was, and they're not nearly as entertaining as some of my manga.

Dollhouse, Joss Whedon's latest TV show, is starting in Britain next Tuesday. It stars Eliza Dushku, who was Faith in Buffy. I was a big fan of Faith, so I'm looking forward to watching this.

Oh Bondage Up Yours

2009-04-29T09:18:00.003+01:00

I'd better write something here, if only as a farewell before I'm carried off by swine flu. I can feel it heading towards me right now. These germs are lurking out there, just waiting for Millar to make an appearance before leaping on board. I'm doomed, and there's nothing to be done about it.

Am plunged into nostalgia again, first by a programme on BBC4 about 70's music. It was great. I mean the music. Well, the programme was good as well. The video of the Sex Pistols playing Pretty Vacant is a high point in Western Culture and I will listen to no arguments against. And yes I remember watching it on Top of the Pops the first time round.

After that I was hunting in a box of stuff when this badge popped out. I'd long forgotten I had it. I don't think I've even seen it for about 30 years. I bought it at a stall in the King's Road, in the far-off days when there was a cheap market there.

It says 'Bondage Up Yours, a reference to X-Ray Spex's song Oh Bondage Up Yours. I saw X-Ray Spex in small pub in Wandsworth, right back in their original incarnation when Laura Logic was still in the band. That was such a great gig. The tiny stage was no more than a foot high, and standing right next to Poly Styrene as she sang was quite an experience. But I'm fairly sure I wrote about this gig in my blog before, so will not drone on about it again.

Hmm. I seem to be in danger of disappearing into the past, and indeed might already have done so were it not for the collection of glamorous young fetish models who visit regularly and, in-between unspeakable perversions and regular cups of tea, do keep me somewhat up to date with the modern world.

Les Petites Fées de New York

2009-04-07T02:18:00.008+01:00

I've been too dull and uninspired to write anything interesting in my blog for a while.

Here are two books, due out soon. There's a French edition of The Good Fairies of New York - Les Petites Fées de New York - coming out on the 18th April, from Editions Intervalles. It's taken a long time for this book to be published in France and I'm glad it's made it eventually. And Soft Skull in the USA will publish a new edition of Lux the Poet in May. I'm pleased to have Lux back in print.

...

Other than that, not much happening. A mysterious insect bite on my foot left me limping around for a few days. Stupid wildlife. However, it did give me an excuse to do nothing except lie on the couch reading manga, and Buffy comics. I always like an excuse to lie on the couch, doing nothing. OK, I don't really need an excuse.

Apart from working on the sequel to Lonely Werewolf Girl, I've been writing with my friend Doon MacKichan. We wrote a play together some years ago, a version of Jane Austin's Emma. That was quite successful. Now she's planning a one-woman show, hopefully for later this year.

Scottish Pronunciation

2009-03-14T10:05:00.005Z

The main clan-name of the werewolves in Lonely Werewolf Girl is MacRinnalch. I recently tried to explain, via email, how to pronounce MacRinnalch. That was difficult.

The main stress would be on Rinn, like mac-RINN-alch, but the ch at the end is difficult to describe. This isn't pronounced like ch at the end of much, or hatch. It's meant to be the same sound as the ch in loch. That's a Scottish sound, not really used in England. Many people would pronounce loch as lok - Lok Lomond, Lok Ness. (I'm not complaining. My own Scottish accent mangles plenty of words. I'm completely indecipherable at times.)

I can't even think of any other common word to give as an example. I look on the internet for pronunciation help. For loch, Wikitionary says: International Phonetic alphabet - lɒx

That doesn't seem to be much help. Who could understand that?

I search further, and find a message board, giving language help to non-English speakers. On the topic of loch, it says, among a lot of other things -

'Ch in loch is an unvoiced uvular fricative, pronounced near the back of the throat.'

and later -

'It's a voiceless velar fricative. If the student knows the English lock, start with that as a basis; the closure between tongue and hard palate (velum) is right. But don't release the air in a single burst; rather, release the air in a continuous stream - through a 'leaky' closure.'

Things are getting worse. At this point I give up, and resolve never to think about it again. Stupid Scottish pronunciation. I'm starting to hate the entire country. Just ending the word with a k would be fine, as in MacRinnalk.

Hmm. It now strikes me that the ch sounds quite like the sound at the end of the composer Bach. Not exactly the same, but close. (Unless Bach is pronounced differently elsewhere from the way I'd say it.)

I'm planning to spend the day watching football and later, eating apple crumble. In a great socio-economic-nutritional shift, I have moved over to this, after slightly tiring of rhubarb. It's a big lifestyle change. Who knows what unforeseen consequences it may bring?

Queen Vex

2009-03-03T12:59:00.003Z

Piatkus, which is an imprint of Little Brown, will publish the sequel to Lonely Werewolf Girl, provisionally entitled Queen Vex, in Britain in March 2010. Prior to that, they'll be putting out a new edition of Lonely Werewolf Girl in October this year. The contract isn't quite finalised yet, but I'm expecting this to happen, and indeed Piatkus have announced it at booktrade.info

So I am now contractually obliged to deliver the sequel. Actually, I'm contractually obliged to deliver it already, as Fischer, the German publisher, also included it in the contract when they bought the first book. So I should probably spend more time writing it, and less time playing SpongeBob video games. Though I'm very fond of SpongeBob video games.

I don't have a contract for Queen Vex in either America or Italy yet, but Lonely Werewolf Girl has done well in both countries so I'm confident it should be published there too, around the same time.

Here is Ragazze Lupo, in Italy, alongside Anne Rice and Edgar Allen Poe. Picture taken by my friend Gail, who I went to school with, and now lives in Bologna.

Why am I interested in pictures of my books on foreign bookshelves you may wonder? Probably because I'm still troubled by agoraphobia, and don't travel. Not much progress with that, really.

The Modern World Continues to Disappoint

2009-02-19T12:43:00.003Z

I generally try to resist urges to re-live my childhood. Or early teenage years, I mean. There isn't anything from my childhood I'd actually want to re-live.

However. No longer having a record deck, I have records I haven't heard for many years. One of these being Hawkwind's Space Ritual, their live magnum opus from the 70s. As a young teenager, I spent a lot of time in my bedroom listening to this, nodding my head to the endless repetitive riffs, and marvelling at the mighty record sleeve. This folded out into six sheets, full of entertaining words and images. Well, they were entertaining if you were a teenage boy and sort of imagined it would be fun to fly around the universe in a space ship with Hawkwind. (I didn't have a lot of girlfriends in those days. OK I had no girlfriends.)

After considering buying this for some years I was finally overwhelmed with nostalgia, so I bought the CD. I knew it wouldn't be the same but I wanted it anyway.

It wasn't till this CD arrived that I realised what a tremendous disappointment the packaging would be. Gone is the mighty album sleeve which folded out into such a huge item, replaced by a puny little booklet, which isn't the same at all. The whole thing is a great disappointment.

Here's a picture of me holding the original sleeve, and the modern equivalent. You can see why I'm not happy.

The World Fantasy Award, which I received for Thraxas, has been on loan for some time, but has now returned to my house.

Here's a good review of the re-issue of Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, in the New York Times. It's taken 20 years to get there.

More Tomb Raider, and Snow

2009-02-13T11:37:00.002Z

London has recovered from last week's snowfall. It wasn't that much snow, really, but it did seem to cause a lot of travel chaos. Hah. In Scotland, I used to walk a long way to school, in worse snow than that. My school never closed for the snow. Children would struggle in, drenched and frozen, and lay their coats over the radiators to dry them out, before struggling home through the snow again. That was common in winter.

Am deeply involved in new Tomb Raider game, Tomb Raider Underworld. I'm enjoying this, though it's a little buggy, but that might be my aging PS2. But I have a nagging feeling my PS2 version isn't as good as the PS3 version. It's probably simplified. Oh well, I'm enjoying it anyway. Lara rides a motorbike into Valhalla, and you can't ask for more than that.

I was sad about the death of Lux Interior, lead singer of the Cramps. I really loved the Cramps. I saw them several times in London, last time at the Brixton Academy. They were great live, and Lux was a terrific frontman.

Bedding

2009-01-28T12:57:00.001Z

I just bought some new sheets, a duvet, and a duvet cover (and there is nothing more fascinating than a blog about bedding) For no good reason I persuaded myself that these new items should all be anti-allergic. Because think how harmful normal bedding might be. Even though I've used it all my life with no ill effects whatsoever.

Anyway, the new sheets and duvet arrived, all hypo-allergenic. They're all fine, except I didn't realise they were going to be so dazzlingly white. My new hypo-allergenic bedding is very white indeed. It's like being in some sort of science project. I feel like I'm going to bed in a sleep-clinic. Or maybe some sort of space-capsule. It's a little disconcerting. But at least there is no chance of a serious night time allergic attack.

More good news arrives with the reports of the health benefits of masturbation. Protects you against prostate cancer. It's a scientific fact. Hmm. Excuse me a moment.

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Ok, where was I? I know. My publisher sent me a picture of my books on sale in a bookstore in Hawaii. Is Hawaii where you get these flower things you hang round your neck? I can't remember what they're called. I'd like one anyway.

Here's the picture. You can tell it's Hawaii from the beaches, palm trees, exotic flowers and so on.

Addiction

2009-01-17T07:40:00.003Z

I suffered a minor spell of ill-health recently. While lying around, being tended by my coterie of glamorous literary secretaries, it struck me that I hadn't been very productive recently. I should be writing more. I also noticed how far behind I was with my email, and thought I should do something about that too. Then it struck me that I'd never played Tetris, which seemed strange, as it was one of the most popular video games ever. So there was only one thing to do. Find an online version and play relentlessly. Immediately become hopelessly addicted and give up all other pursuits. Decide never to do anything again except play Tetris. Hmm. This may go on for some time.

* Some time later *

Still struggling with Tetris addiction. Fingers now sore from continual aggressive keyboard action. Help arrives in the form of a new Buffy comic, which does give me a break. The story is a flashback to Buffy's days at school, when Giles was still the school librarian, and I like that. Perhaps Buffy can help to break the Tetris addiction.

Books I wish had survived from the ancient world - Gaius Plinius Secundus (Pliny the Elder) wrote an instruction manual on how to throw a javelin from horseback. He had first-hand experience of this, from various Roman wars in Germany. Sadly, the book no longer survives. But think how interesting it would be. Who can really talk authoritively about throwing a javelin from horseback these days? Probably no one.

Live and Dangerous

2008-12-31T04:58:00.001Z

I had a very pleasant time at my brother's house for Christmas. It was nice to see my nieces and nephews excited by the festivities. I took some care in selecting presents for them. Unfortunately, they didn't seem that impressed. So I expect I failed in that endeavour. No doubt I'm useless at selecting presents. Ho Hum. But they were very happy about Christmas anyway, and their much better presents from their parents.

I gave my brother - a fan of old school heavy rock - 'Live and Dangerous', Thin Lizzy's live double album from 1972, generally regarded as their finest moment. Well, when I say double album, I bought it from iTunes so it's not an album at all, just computer files that you put on a disc, which is not the same at all. You know, the world really was better when you had giant album covers, with pictures and lyrics and stuff.

My brother gave me a book of Pliny's letters, and this was something I really wanted, and is one of favourite presents ever. Pliny the Younger wrote a first-hand account of the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompeii in 79AD, and his letters are full of many interesting pieces about life in Rome.

A few weeks ago I took part in a film about Les Carter, a birthday present from his partner Crissi. My part involved being filmed in the rain in front of the Brixton Academy, talking about Les. That went quite well. Well, I hope it did, I haven't actually seen the film. But I was pleased to make a contribution anyway.

I wonder why the Brixton Academy, which is a music venue, chose that name? Academy really means an institute of learning. Every academy takes its name, ultimately, from the school of philosophy founded by Plato around 385 BC at Akademia, close to Athens in Greece.

Plato was a pupil of Socrates. Something that always surprises me is the way that Socrates and other philosophers managed to be so civilised in the midst of continual strife. For instance, Socrates would be wandering around Athens, teaching philosophy, and then suddenly the order would come for everyone to turn up next day with their weapons, and three days rations, because they had to go to war. So Socrates would march off to war, take part in some bloody battle, march back to Athens, and then get on with teaching philosophy. That happened to him on various occasions. Amazing really. I'd have liked to learn philosophy from Socrates, but I'd have been useless at marching off to war.

Kalix. Werwölfin von London

2008-12-13T04:55:00.007Z

Lonely Werewolf Girl will be published in Germany in June 2009, by Fischer. Fischer is a big publisher, I'm looking forward to their edition coming out. Here it is at the publisher's website and at amazon.de. The title in German will be Kalix. Werwölfin von London. Which, you will notice, contains an umlaut. Umlauts are always cool. It's a shame that in English, there is never the opportunity to put two little dots over a letter.

Under different publishers, The Good Fairies of New York has been continually in print in Germany since it first came out, many years ago. And all eight Thraxas books were published in German too. So I have to say I'm all in favour of the German reading public at this moment.

London has been dreadfully cold. There's nothing else to do except lie in a nice hot bath reading Steel Fist Riku and whatever other manga comes to hand. Leaving the house will soon be impossible apart from the occasional dash to the shops to buy hobnobs. If the temperature drops any further this may no longer be possible, and I'll need people to send me supplies on a sled pulled by huskies, or maybe an emergency airlift.

More of My Backlist Unleashed on the World

2008-12-09T09:29:00.006Z

The Millar backlist assault on the world continues. I just received the manuscript for the re-issue of Lux the Poet, which will be reprinted some time next year. And only yesterday the postman brought me a box of copies of Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation from the American publisher Soft Skull. This seems to be available on amazon.com already, although it hasn't reached amazon.co.uk yet.

Hmm. Can anyone actually prove I wrote all these books? I could deny it.

A brief story about when I was writing Lux the Poet: I was living in a small council flat in Brixton. I shared the flat with a primary school teacher, who was rarely there, and a young man who was a serious alcoholic, as was his boyfriend. They were continually drunk, probably too drunk to have sex, but they were both fond of spanking. Being so drunk, they weren't concerned about privacy, and used to perform, or attempt to perform, spanking sessions in the living room. Meanwhile I stayed in my own room, writing Lux the Poet on an old word-processor. So I could hear the spanking, which would have been strange enough anyway, but because of their extreme drunkenness and lack of co-ordination, it happened at an unbelievably slow rate. I'd write one sentence of Lux, and hear a vague slapping noise. And then I'd write a bit more, and after a few more sentences, there be another spanking noise, followed by some loud struggling as they fell off the couch, and scrambled around for their cans of special brew. And then, some time later, there's be another vague slapping sound. Really, you wouldn't believe that any spanking could possibly be carried on in such a slow and disorganised fashion. Sometimes he'd actually miss the target, which you'd think would be practically impossible. Hours later I'd find them collapsed, semi-naked and unconscious on the living room floor. Both of them by this time quite emaciated young men, from alcohol abuse. I was pleased when I moved out of that flat.

If you're looking for some relaxing viewing - like for instance if you've just taken a rhubarb crumble out of the oven and you're planning it eat it while watching TV - then I recommend not watching 'Happiness', Todd Solondz's grim black comedy from 1999. I found myself doing this a few nights ago, and it was definitely a poor choice. I've rarely seen so much uncomfortable heavy breathing and squirming onscreen, or such a cast of unlikeable characters. But it's a good film too, so I didn't want to stop watching it. It kind of spoiled my rhubarb crumble relaxation though. I hereby resolve never to watch anything serious ever again, and stick to watching Tokyo Mew Mew on Pop TV. Except now it's changed channels to Popgirl TV and I don't have that channel. Damn these schedulers. Fine I'll watch it on youtube instead.

Out of Date

2008-11-22T11:23:00.003Z

Catastrophe. So far, I've been managing cheerfully enough with my Playstation2. This is well out of date, but I don't much care, because I don't mind playing older games.

However. The new Tomb Raider game is now being released for PS3 and other games machines, but the PS2 version won't come out till January! I really love Tomb Raider. I don't want to wait.

As you can imagine, this is quite a crisis. I'm very unhappy at all this. It feels like I'm being punished for being behind the times. I suppose I could just wait patiently till it comes out. Or wait impatiently, and complain all the time. Or - and I feel this may be the best alternative - use credit card in reckless Kamikaze fashion, and buy a new Playstation, despite the danger that this may lead to total fiscal disaster.

Hmm. It's a difficult dilemma, one which my life experience has left me ill-equipped to resolve.

I recently did an interview for Colleen Mondor, for her site Chasing Ray. This interview was part of the Winter Blog Blast Tour.

I've just noticed that Colleen's site is named after Ray Bradbury, which makes me think that's it's a long time since I read any Ray Bradbury, but I do remember really enjoying his books, so I should read some again.

Lack of Energy

2008-11-17T20:28:00.002Z

I've been lacking energy for blogging recently, or even for replying to replies to my blog. I don't know why. I must have some sort of blogging fatigue. I mean to write something but then notice that four days have passed, and all I've done is play my SpongeBob SquarePants video game. In my defence, it is a very good game.

Here's a picture from the manga Claymore, which I've been reading quite obsessively. Slender silver-haired women with huge swords, chopping up monsters. What more can you ask from a comic?

And here's a review of Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, my first novel, which will be re-issued early next year.

Right, that's it, I'm off to watch House. I really like this programme.

Book Stuff

2008-10-27T23:45:00.004Z

Lonely Werewolf Girl appears in the nominations for the Fantasy and Science Fiction (Young Adult) category in the Cybil Awards (Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards ) It's a very long list, I don't know when it's distilled into a shortlist. I'm very pleased to be there.

Here's a review of the recently re-issued Suzy, Led Zeppelin and Me in The Guardian.

I spent last week checking the manuscript for Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, for the new edition by Soft Skull. And when I say checking the manuscript, I mean not looking at it at all, and just hoping it was OK. I will just trust the skills of the editors at Soft Skull, who have been doing fine with my books so far.

Hmm. May not be doing a great job of selling my old books here. Will work up more enthusiasm when it comes out. Which is early next year, I think.

When Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation was first published, in 1987, I was working as a clerk for the council, filling in forms for their heating engineers. That wasn't such a bad job.

No progress on the naval piercing. Am frustrated by circumstances. Still, nothing bad has happened. However, on the domestic front, my footstool did disintegrate with age, after many years of faithful service. I need a new one, because you cant really slump properly in front of the TV without a footstool, and I need to do that.

Piercing

2008-10-12T18:22:00.003+01:00

I just wrote a long and quite tedious blog about my navel piercing. Abandoning that version, and trimming it down to the bare essentials, the story goes as follows -

Navel pierced about 12 years ago
Removed it about 8 years ago
Presumed it had healed
Was surprised last month when the old piercing went gunky.
Apparently it's never healed properly
Seems OK now, but not sure if best thing to do is wait for it to heal, or just put a bar through it again
Fortunately
there is a piercing studio in between me
and the place I go for my agoraphobia therapy
But as it turns out
The studio is closed on that same day every week
so it means making an extra journey
am not sure what to do about this
Get another stud put it
or just leave it to close up
hmm.

* Why do you have your navel pierced anyway?
Who do you think you are, Britney Spears? *

Good question. I got it done on a whim, years ago. I went with a friend to keep her company when she was going to visit a body piercing studio. Well when I say body piercing studio, I mean a man with needles in a squat in Brixton. (To be fair to him, he was good at it.) I was only there to lend moral support. But then I apparently suffered some form of temporary madness, and got my navel pierced.

I was surprised that I'd done it. And quite perturbed when I examined it outside Brixton tube station and discovered that blood was dripping onto my trousers. But it was OK afterwards, and I liked it. I should never have taken it out, really.

Actually, that was all quite a good story. It's a shame my longer version was so tedious.

My agents are negotiating a contract for a German translation of Lonely Werewolf Girl. That's good. Perhaps I could supply the publisher with a stylish author-with-pierced-navel picture for the back cover. Hmm. Am really not sure whether to wait and see if it heals, or put something back through the hole.

Refugee

2008-09-25T13:35:00.001+01:00

There have been shocking scenes of misery and deprivation in these parts recently as the heating engineers arrived to install a new boiler in my flat. It meant I couldn't stay home during the day, as they were drilling through walls and stuff.

Now, I could have coped with these two days - organised to visit someone or something like that - if I was not the most hopelessly disorganised person on the planet. And also, the agoraphobia didn't help. Did not really want to go far from home. Which led to me spending one day sitting miserably in the local library, waiting for the engineers to finish their work. I felt like a refugee. All I needed was a blanket. And I had to go to the dentist later. What a lousy day that was.

The next day was my day for agoraphobia therapy so I set off several hours early and then just hung around uselessly for ages. Another very poor day, all in all. Though it was interesting being on a bus at 8.30 in the morning, something I haven't experienced for some years. It was full of people going to work, and none of them looked very happy, which is understandable.

I haven't been to work for many years, though I was employed full-time earlier in my life. My last job was as a clerk for the local council, and before that I was a library assistant, a clerk at the Brixton benefit office, and also a manual labourer.

When my first book was published, Milk, Sulphate and Alby Starvation, I kept on being a clerk for the council, but next year, 1988, when Lux the Poet came out, a magazine phoned me up for an interview. So I thought, well if magazines are phoning me up for interviews I must be close to being a famous and wealthy author, so I'd better just stop working. Which I did. And that turned out to be a mistake at the time, as I'd neglected to consider that I didn't really have any income, apart from puny royalties of a few hundred pounds per year.

However, have studiously avoided work ever since then. Indeed this is my main reason for being an author, and always has been, so I don't have to go to work. This has gone well, in terms of being able to lie on the couch doing nothing for days at a time, but has sometimes been a problem in terms of income. However, I'm doing better now. There is no need to send food parcels.

My agents are now doing the contract for a German edition of Lonely Werewolf Girl, with a particularly fine German publisher, which is good news. In the next year or so the book will be available in Italian, German, Greek, and French. My werewolves will conquer Europe.

Hmmm. New heating appears to be working well. Will lie on the couch for 48 hours, checking it out. What if they didn't install it properly and there's a gas leak? If you hear news of a catastrophic explosion in South London, that will probably be me. Will just have to hope for the best, because I'm not leaving my flat again ever.