The Next Big Thing

The Next Big Thing

I’ve never been a big reader. It’s amazing I managed to pick up the writing thing at all. But these days, I get asked to review quite a few books and I’m rather surprised by how much I’m enjoying the experience. My current read is ‘Sleeping People Lie,’ by Jae de Wylde. It’s a love story with an iron grip and bitter-chocolate taste. I’m a little bit addicted.  The fragrant Jae dropped me a line to ask me if I’d like to participate in The Next Big Thing, a blog hop in the best tradition of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.’ I’m a sucker for these things. Before passing the baton onto me and four others, Jae wrote her own take on the title which you can read here.

Jack’s Next Big Thing

What is the working title of your book?

I’m currently compiling the best bits from Perking the Pansies, the Turkey years, into an uncensored two volume e-book coming to a Kindle near you very soon. The first volume is called Turkey, the Raw Guide and the second is called Turkey, Surviving the Expats. Taken together, the boxed set will be a spruced up director’s cut of our time in a Muslim land with added bite, previously unreleased material and additional features.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

When I read back through the blog, I was amazed about how much I’d written. Most of it was never included in my debut book (and, being different animals entirely, much of book was never included in the blog). The trouble with most blog posts is that once they’re read they’re dead. I thought bringing it all together would be a satisfying way to draw a line under our Anatolian Adventure and now I’m back in Blighty, I can be a little more honest.

What is the genre?

The mini-series is an easy-to-digest guide to Turkey with a tasty hard centre of memoir.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

Believe me, this has been the cause of much drunken speculation among the Bodrum Belles and Gumbet Gals. Liam is rather taken with the idea of Jude Law playing him. Now that poor Jude is losing his hair, the cap really fits. As for me, well it has been cruelly suggested that Danny DeVito would be ideal in the part of Jack, the rotund, drunken short-arse. If he wasn’t so creepy, I’d probably go for Tom Cruise. He’s about the right height.

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Have you ever wondered what it’s really like to live in a foreign field, particularly a Muslim one?  To get a real feel, you need to ask someone who’s been there, done that and bought all the fake t-shirts. (Okay this is two sentences. So shoot me.)

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

It’s virtually impossible to get agent representation. Trying to get one is a bruising and expensive business, best avoided by the thin-skinned. I’m self-publishing the e-books through Kindle and pricing them competitively to see how they fly. My first book was published through Summertime Publishing and they’ve agreed to publish the sequel which should be out in early 2013. The e-books are something that lie in between, a kind of bridge between the two.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

It’s taken us (Liam is my whip-cracking editor) about two months so far to revise the flabby grammar, edit the material down into a believable whole and decide what tasty extras to include.

What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

A difficult one. I’d say Perking the Pansies has the feel of Bridget Jones with a pink twist and an injection of pathos.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

I’m hoping the unreleased material and some solid old-fashioned advice about the reality of living in Turkey will grab the imagination. I’d like to be functional as well as decorative.

Now it’s time for me to pass on the poisoned chalice. In no particular order (as they say on Strictly Come Dancing), let’s hear it from …

David Gee, author of Shaikh-Down – a delicious, randy romp through the myopic and bawdy world of Gulf expatriate life set against the chilling winds of change.

Deborah Fletcher, author of Bitten by Spain – a very funny, beautifully descriptive and endearingly frank account of building the dream in Murcia.

Jo Parfitt, multi-tasker extraordinaire and author of Sunshine Soup – a hugely enjoyable tale of loss, intrigue and redemption.

Maggie Myklebust, author of Fly Away Home – a heartfelt book written with searing honesty that covers the push-pull effect of growing up in two cultures.

Laura J Stephens, author of An Inconvenient Posting – an agonisingly candid and raw account of loss and transition.

No pressure.

After the Fall of Saigon

Hasn’t Vietnam come a long way since the Fall of Saigon? Watch and smile. Ho Chi Minh and Lyndon Johnson must be spinning in their graves.

Never Knowingly Undersold

Yes, I know it’s a garden table

John Lewis is one of the grand old dames of the British high street (Marks and Spencer is the other). The company’s enviable reputation for quality and service has enabled the group to weather the lashings of recession better than most. Not that you’d know that from our experience of the Norwich branch. There was a cute little corner of our kitchen crying out for a bijou table, a place for Liam to listen to Radio 4 and munch his early-morning muesli before a busy day at the doc’s fiddling the data. We found just the thing in a little corner of the local John Lewis. After the bruising press gang trials of Turkey, shopping in Blighty is an eternal joy (except at Christmas, when it’s every man for himself). But things are not always as they seem. There’s a Grand Canyon of difference between being bullied into submission by the pretty boys in skin-tight shirts and being ignored completely by the snotty partners who are too busy gossiping with their co-workers. It took a lifetime to get hold of our goods. And while I’m ranting, what’s with the take-the-ticket-to-the-collection-point business? It’s just like Argos but not nearly as fast or efficient. ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ boast the John Lewis adverts. ‘Never Knowingly Served,’ more like.

Post Script: I used to know a handsome young Spaniard called Juan Luis Salle, known about town as the ‘John Lewis Sale’ because he was never knowingly undersold.

Other posts on a shopping theme include:

Nick It!

Retail Therapy

Pot, Poofs and the Good Book

The wise people of the Yankee state of Washington have voted in a referendum to legalise both same sex marriage and the recreational use of marijuana. Perhaps the Good Book was right all along.

Leviticus 20:13: ‘A man who lays with another man should be stoned.’

Who knew?

We Are Norwich and the EDL

We Are Norwich is a rainbow alliance of political, faith and community groups and individuals who have come together to oppose the presence of the English Defence League (EDL) in the fair city of Norwich. The EDL intends to stomp through the streets tomorrow (10th November 2012) to protest against a decision by the City Council to ban a stall by the Norwich Reformed Church* because of the alleged Islamaphobic nature of one of its leaflets. We are Norwich is planning a peaceful, family-friendly counter-demonstration that celebrates and protects the city’s diversity, multiculturalism and honourable tradition of inclusion. The counter-protest will start at 11am in Chapelfield Gardens. Expect an uplifting party atmosphere. For more information please check the website.

We Are Norwich is a broad church and did not campaign to have the EDL march prohibited. I think this was the right approach. Generally, I’m not in favour of banning this and banning that. It tends to drive things underground and is often counter-productive. As a card-carrying dyed-in-wool liberal, extremists on both sides of the political spectrum tend to leave me frigid, none more so than the EDL, an odious little organisation with obvious links to the British National Party and other Far Right misfits. I don’t particularly want them goose-stepping through this city but I wouldn’t stop them coming either. When an EDL grunt was asked by Chris Goreham on BBC Radio Norfolk’s Breakfast Show what the English Defence League was actually defending England from, the silly young man was unable to provide an answer, any answer, and just rambled on incoherently. A fine example of an education system gone awry, I thought. Conversely, Nick O’Brien, Secretary of We Are Norwich, was able to articulate coalition values with convincing authority and depth. It was just a shame that Nick was abruptly cut off by DJ Chris when he mentioned Hitler. Clearly, Auntie Beeb doesn’t do the Third Reich for breakfast. It might put middle Anglia off their muesli.

I hope events tomorrow pass by without serious incident. We Are Norwich has worked closely with the Police to ensure a loud and lively but peaceful affair. As for the EDL? Who knows. They’re a flaky lot. In a liberal, pluralist society like ours, we must accept that people are entitled to hold different views, no matter how offensive they are. There are lines to be drawn, of course. Preaching hatred is one of them, violence is another. We’ll see what lines get crossed tomorrow.

*The Norwich Reform Church is the only organisation, faith-based or otherwise, to demonstrate against Norwich’s annual pride event. This says a great deal about the package of prejudices these people have adopted to promote their particular nasty brand of hell and damnation Christian love. 

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Eat, Drink and Be Merry

One lovely old face

St Andrew’s and Blackfriars’ Halls (known collectively as ‘The Halls’) is a 13th century medieval complex at the end of our street and the best preserved friary in England. The riot of sturdy buttresses, hammer beams and Gothic arches is one of the ‘Norwich 12‘ – a list of the most iconic buildings in the city. When Henry VIII decided to strip the Catholic Church of all its power and wealth, the friary was dissolved, the friars were cast out into the cold and the buildings were put up for sale. They were saved by the intervention of the Mayor of Norwich who took them off fat Harry’s hands for £81, pledging to use the halls “…for the good of the citizens, for fairs and feasting.” The Halls have been used for secular knees-ups ever since.  Carrying on the 450 year old party tradition, St Andrew’s Hall has just played grand host to the Norwich Beer Festival, a six day piss-up sponsored by the Norwich and Norfolk branch of the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA). Real ales are for real males judging by the herd of nerds in knitwear corralled outside a side door having a quick fag before resuming their drunken orgy and sucking the kegs dry. I was so fascinated by the species that I walked straight into a lamp post and nearly knocked myself out. And I was the sober one. Cheers!

Another lovely old face after it walked into a lamp post

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A Date with Anna Karenina

The Birds

The Terrible Twos

Two years in the making and, just as Liam and I celebrated the blog’s second birthday with a drop of bubbly, Perking the Pansies received its 250,000th hit*. This may be skinny fry for the big hitters but this fat little sprat is delighted. I had fretted that our move – a wrench from the warm bosom of Bodrum to a quick-step along Norwich’s ancient cobbled lanes – might put people off. I thought I might end up talking to myself. I thought I might end up in therapy. Well, I needn’t have worried, readers have stayed the course, I’ve actually picked up a few more punters along the street and the book is still dropping into the shopping basket. So, whoever you are out there, friends and strangers alike, thank you.

Who knows what the terrible twos will bring? For a start, the equal sequel to the book will be out in 2013. Gird your loins. If you thought the first book was an eye opener, well… Thank you for all the enquiries; watch this space. I will also be releasing two e-books this month, and of course, I’ll continue to bombard you with rambling posts and the occasional bit of not so subtle PR.

On that very subject, the people at iWriteReadRate have shortlisted  Perking the Pansies for their book of the month competition. If you can be bothered, please vote. You’ll have to register though, which is a bit of a drag. Who knows? You might like this fancy new book site and stick around. Aw, go on.

* combined with my original Google blog that was blocked in Turkey in December 2010, blah, blah, blah …

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200,000 Hit Plus

Happy Birthday, Perking the Pansies

Stonewall’s Bigot of the Year 2012

Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland, has been named as Stonewall’s Bigot of the Year 2012. He gets my vote.  His ‘Eminence’ (these people do so love their titles and do so hate to be questioned) has declared ‘war’ on the Scottish Government’s plans to introduce marriage equality and likens gay marriage to slavery and child abuse. He should know. The Catholic Church is well-acquainted with war, slavery and child abuse.

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Marriage Equality – Much I Do About Nothing

Stonewall’s Bigot of the Year (2011)

Greg’s Back Alley

Greg’s Back Alley

With familiar names like Charing Cross, Blackfriars Bridge, Spitalfields, Haymarket and Pudding Lane, you could mistake Norwich for London. But, during all my years in the Smoke, I never spotted a tree swathed in wrapping paper or a multi-coloured tea set wafting in the leaves, not even when flying high on recreational smarties. Other city streets have a distinctive rural feel – Upper Goat Lane (quite Turkish, when you think about it), Golden Dog Lane, Lobster Lane, Rampant Horse Street and my ecclesiastical favourite, St Gregory’s Back Alley. Who was the saintly Greg and why was his back alley so popular? I think those naughty monks should dish the dirt.

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Five Rules for a Happy Gay Life

Our re-acquaintance, after a absence of 5 years, with the lewd, the rude and the crude of the Isle of Dogs* reminded me of a bit of a gag that Bob Senkow sent me some time ago:

  1. It’s important to have a man who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.
  2. It’s important to have a man who can make you laugh.
  3. It’s important to have a man who you can trust and who doesn’t lie to you.
  4. It’s important to have a man who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.
  5. It’s very, very, very important that these four men don’t know each other.

Just a happy gay life? Discuss.

*Contrary to its name, the islands have little to nothing to do with the canary bird. Rather, it is the bird that is named after the islands, not the converse. The name Islas Canarias is likely derived from the Latin name Canariae Insulae, meaning “Island of the Dogs”, a name applied originally only to Gran Canaria. According to the historian Pliny the Elder, the Mauritanian king Juba II named the island Canaria because it contained “vast multitudes of dogs of very large size”.  Source: Wikipedia. 

This still applies today. Woof, woof.