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LittleDogOnALead
Thoughts and Opinions and Other Stuff
Here are my thoughts and opinions on a number of subjects (mainly to do with me - yawn). Some of these have previously appeared on my LittleDogOnALead website (which is a bad thing - duplicating content - according to SEO gurus, apparently), but as nobody has read them there...
Fame
Those of you who have happened to come across any of my blog posts will recognise that the majority of them are of a grouchy, morose nature, usually bewailing the lack of sales of my books. Blog readers from Canada, Nigeria, India, Japan, Romania, Sweden, the USA, Russia and other exciting places of the world (sadly none from the Antarctic – Antarctica has cold-shouldered me) will, no doubt, have in their mind’s eye the image of an embittered, withered writing hack, desperate for fame and glory (and money from any book sales).But this is not the case. Fame and glory are not all they are made out to be. Without fame, I can walk to the newsagents to fetch my morning paper, gooseberry yogurt and carton of milk without being stopped to sign my autograph on the greasy sleeve of someone’s faded grey t-shirt. Without fame, I can travel on a bus without fear of being pointed at (“It’s him!”). No one follows me down the street, stalking me – trying to find out where I live – or rummages through my dustbin to find out what flavour yogurt I eat. No one from the national television channels or from the local radio stations mounts a vigil outside my front door, trampling on the dent de lion and valerian in the front garden, hoping to broadcast my views on world peace, the latest fashions, the price of sugar or the emancipation of zoo animals.
And money isn’t a path to happiness. Beyond the purchasing of essential foodstuffs, the payment of rent and of utilities, and the occasional irrational impulse buy (a Mister Potato Head toy), money has no meaning. All that happens when extra excessive money comes in (from the sales of books) is that you end up with a bigger house, a bigger front garden with bigger weeds, and a bigger garage full of expensive gas-guzzling cars or boxes full of Mister Potato Head toys.
So I’m happy with my current state; I’m happy to be a non-best-selling author - untouched by fame and glory, fanatical idolatry, unhealthy obsession and an overflowing bank account.
But it would be nice if someone actually bought one of my books and read it.
The Art Of Gentle Persuasion - Book Selling
The world is full of hatred and violence; divisive thoughts and viewpoints, in the fields of politics, race, class and religion, set people against each other. And yet there still remains a caring society; people look after – as opposed to looking down on – others; a friendly smile – under the cover of a face mask – still shows in the gentle crinkle around the eyes, and a cheerful wave, across a quiet two metres distance, can send a message of love and peace to the frightened and lonely.
And so it is with the art of selling books. I always suggest to anyone considering buying one of my books that I will go and pat a small-to-medium-sized dog on the head if I see an increase in the eBooks Sold and Estimated Earnings totals on my Kobo Dashboard.
This doesn’t work. Sales and Earnings remain stagnant; dogs’ heads remain un-patted.
So now, in line with the world’s divisiveness, hatred and violence, I will offer to club a baby seal to death should anyone buy any one of my books. For anyone purchasing two or more of my books I will offer to push a giraffe down a flight of stairs.
With this new marketing ploy I expect to achieve world domination in book sales – similar to that achieved by certain businesses who operate in the area of online social media and social networking services.
Of course, I don’t own a baseball bat, and the nearest coastline is 85 miles away from where I live; and I would never push a giraffe down a set of stairs, nor harm even a fly on the head of a baby seal. So I expect my book sales and earnings to remain stagnant...
...and the world (and baby seals) can remain safe.
Social Mobility
Here in the UK, when we talk about social mobility, it is spoken of as an inherent right of an individual in the UK under the same ‘umbrella of rights’, morally and in law, which govern the equality of the sexes and equality regardless of one’s sexual orientation, racial or ethnic background and/or disability.However, social mobility is generally accepted to be an ‘upwards’ process. It means, for example, if you were born on a council estate and scraped through your GCSEs in a city centre secondary modern school, you have the inalienable right to a high-powered, high-salaried post in the City (c/w shares), relocating yourself to a beautiful detached cottage in leafy Surrey where you can take possession of an expensive high-powered, petrol-fuelled, ride-on lawnmower for your three quarters of an acre paddock complete with a pony for Poppy and a large wooden cabin to keep your large collection of Barbour wax jackets and green Wellington boots in.
Social mobility should work both ways. Unfortunately, in the UK it doesn’t. There are an unfortunate group of people who - through no fault of their own - have been born into a social elite that provided them with a care-free childhood - free from poverty, and with the best education that prep boarding schools and fee-charging public colleges can provide, with access to others of the same social elite and access to the ‘Oxbridge’ universities, and they are quite unable - despite of all this - to rent a crumbling, damp-ridden high-rise council flat in an unfashionable part of town. Blame for this must be laid at the door of Margaret Thatcher’s Tory Government of the 1980s which forced local councils to sell all of their properties and denied them the means to build new council properties through the capping of capital expenditure.
And I personally know of a someone who was related to royalty, who divorced his blue-blood Lady wife, married a lady who was deemed to be unacceptable to someone of his social standing, drank himself to death and - despite this - still died a Lord.
It is all so unfair.
This is why I think we should all write to our local Member of Parliament, asking them to urgently correct this injustice.
Social mobility should not just be for poor people.
November 3rd 2020
This was my thoughts about the 3rd November 2020.Well, now that all of the excitement from the 3rd of November has passed, I feel that I can say my piece: I demand a recount.
I’m not talking about the USA Presidential election; I’m talking about the number of pre-ordered sales of my new book I, CHIMP. I mean, I spent at least three months writing it, and in that time had done much head scratching, armpit scratching, (scratching all over, really), and had brought the book to the point of where I believe it would have had Leo Tolstoy biting his Biro in envy, and at the end of all that – on the 3rd of November – pre-ordered sales was beaten into last place by the Undecided and the Don’t Know parties.
Not that I’m feeling bitter and angry; I’m just not going to move from my writing desk until they do a recount, until they get it right…
And moving on from the 3rd of November, sales have been pretty consistent with the pre-ordered sales, so I’m never going to see I, CHIMP knock Barry The Yellow Plastic Margarine Tub Goes Swimming by Ethel Watson off the top of the best seller list. All I can do is bare my teeth in a grin of false (fake?) pleasure and say: ‘Well done, Ethel, well done. If it’s as good as your previous book, Barry The Yellow Plastic Margarine Tub Meets Mister Grimble The Magic Tea Towel, then you are a definite cert for the Pulitzer Prize.’
It’s not that my book is a loser, it is book with hidden potential, having a quiet moment. And it doesn’t help that I haven’t appeared on television to promote my book. No one asked me, of course. In fact, I have only ever been on television twice: my first appearance was on Match Of The Day on the 25th March 1978, Mansfield Town v Tottenham Hotspur – you can just see my legs at the very top of the screen, running for the bus before the end of the match (final score 3:3). The crowd was roaring: nothing to do with my legs (three goals scored in the last five minutes). But should you see my legs, on an old video of the match, you would say to yourself: ‘these legs have artistic possibilities; 'these legs will go on to write a book that has Ethel Watson biting her typewriter in envy.’ (Well, not the legs, obviously).
These legs are not bitter and angry; they just want to kick something...
Mansfield Town v Tottenham Hotspur - You Tube Link
Classic Fiction
A reader’s letter in the i newspaper caught my eye. It was regarding an article in a previous day’s edition - which I somehow failed to read - concerning the trend for chick-lit novels (and films or television programmes) to be written (or made) based on ‘classic’ stories such as Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice for example. From the letter, it appears that the article’s author was of the opinion that ‘classic’ stories shouldn’t be used for modern ‘works’.Now I’m no reader of chick-lit and have never knowingly been within six feet of Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility - ape that I am, but I am pretty certain that using ‘classic’ storylines is not just confined to chick-lit. And I am not altogether sure whether this is a ‘bad thing’. So I have decided to re-tell Herman Melville’s Moby Dick in a modern setting:
Sardina Pilchardus
Ishmael, the story’s narrator, has fallen on hard times through the closure of the local, independent book store where he worked, which had failed because of unfair competition and price under-cutting by an international information technology giant. In order to keep his body and soul together, and because he desires to see ‘more of the world’, he takes a job as a shelf stacker in one of the stores of a national supermarket chain. There he encounters the store’s mercurial manager Ahab, who drives Ishmael and the rest of the supermarket employees on a quest to seek out and inflict revenge upon a great white sardine, which had taken Ahab’s leg in a previous sales quarter.Ahab and his staff sail up and down the aisles of the supermarket, hunting down the tin which holds the ghostly white sardine (in brine). The story is interspersed with information about fish in general, sardines in particular, canning factories, and the benefits of an omega-3 fatty-acid-rich diet full of vitamins and minerals.
I don’t want to spoil the story for anyone, but things don’t turn out well for Ishmael or Ahab and his staff, and a shopping trolley gets broken.
Nine Book Reviews
Why nine? I hear you ask. Easy: because it is not ten.
Here is a selection (nine) of some of the reviews I have posted on my Goodreads webpage, where they expect an honest, constructive assessment - without giving away too much of the storyline ('..the butler did it..' - Earl Grey and The Laburnum Seed Cake by Agatha Christie). Well honesty has never been a problem for me* but being constructive has (been), so most of my reviews bear little relationship to the books in question and provide no insights into the author’s state of mind or help influence the (potential) readers book-buying decision. As I always say: read it and if you don’t like it... stop.
* By the way, if you have never heard of Clark Ashton Smith, I think he was in a band: Deep Purple.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
If this is a 'contemporary classic' from a 'writer who really matters' then I'm a pixie.Perhaps I'm being a little unkind? Perhaps I lost something in translation? It starts off slow and awkward, with a bit of metaphysics thrown in to make it highbrow, then carries on in the same vein, until half way through the book where it picks up a bit (oh! my descriptive comments!) and ends almost enjoyably.
I could be being a little unkind; I apologise if you think so. These pixie boots are killing my feet and this green hat is far too tight. I'm off to make a cup of tea and read something by Raymond Chandler.
[note: 'contemporary' for 1984 when it was written? - about 1968 Czechoslovakia?]
Beeswing: Fairport, Folk Rock and Finding My Voice, 1967–75 by Richard Thompson
Thoroughly entertaining. Buy a copy. Buy two.
Britain From The Rails: A Window-Gazer’s Guide by Benedict Le Vay
This book is what it says it is: a window-gazer's guide to Britain from the rails. If you like travelling around on trains in Britain and like to know snippets about the places you are passing through then this is the book for you. Otherwise...I have a feeling that three stars out of five is a little unfair, but I can't give it three-and-a-half.
Off The Pegg by Dave Pegg and Nigel Schofield
One of the best reads of this year, for me, so far. Really funny and interesting.My only quibble is that some small parts of it are repeated every few pages or so - a bit like the existing vogue for television programmes which announce 'we are going to visit/do so-and-so today' and then announce the same thing ten-fifteen minutes later (it's a modern-day-short-time-span-attention thing). But it's only a small quibble…
Five stars, because it is an excellent book. And because it is Peggy - a legend!
(By the way, for those of you unfortunate enough to not have heard (of) Dave Pegg, he is a bass player (E A D G) in a rock band – dum-de-dumdum.)
Camp Concentration by Thomas M Disch
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!A superlative story. Worth risking life and limb, crossing an eight lane motorway full of speeding vehicles, to get hold of a copy.
Moby Dick By Hermann Melville
This book shouts at you; sometimes a little incoherently, like a drunk, but in the main it is a fantastic shout.
The Return Of The King by J R R Tolkien
This book will go far.
Lost Worlds Volume One by Clark Ashton Smith
In the early part of my teenage years I came across Clark Ashton Smith. The fantastic front covers may have compelled me to buy the books, like some evil, malevolent spirit, and the stories themselves kept me in a state of bewitchment. There was no doubt that these stories contained many adjectives and other descriptive words that my fourteen year old brain failed to understand, and even now, many years later, I am still often left scratching my head.Nevertheless, the stories are all (mostly) still a joy to read.
Weirdness at its most weird; horror at its most horrible. This collection of short stories will have you frantically looking at the shaded corners of your house, searching for something lurking there, demonic and malignant, which is drawing you irresistibly towards the dark depths of some terrifying outer hell.
Agghh!
Lost Worlds Volume Two by Clark Ashton Smith
More classic short stories from Clark Ashton Smith - the man who once swallowed a Thesaurus.
And A Tenth Review (just to make up the numbers)
Malacia Tapestry by Brian Aldiss
This book, and a few other stories by a few other authors, is GUARANTEED (big letters; bold) to keep my interest whilst I read it, and give me a lovely warm feeling upon finishing it. It is so good, I just want to go back to the beginning and start all over again.
Brian Aldiss should have been made the ruler of a small country on account of writing this book. Hail, President Aldiss!
(Do you think I have gone a bit overboard?)
Talking - A Thought
Talking involves the prolonged use of the diaphragm to force air out of the lungs, up the throat to the mouth, where extended application of the tongue, lips and jaw muscles form sounds and the often erratic twitching of arm and hand muscles are employed to accompany and emphasise the meanings of those sounds...
...whereas listening just requires a slight movement of the neck muscles to give a nod of assent, infrequent use of the diaphragm to create a quiet “mmm” sound and the constant but miniscule employment of the eye muscles to prevent the gaze from wandering.
So why is it so much more physically exhausting to listen than it is to talk?
