Scottish Pronunciation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.