Buzz

June 30th, 2008 | 0 comments »

A bit in this mornings Times asks about that illustrious creature the honeybee and why they are disappearing – if their reporter was up on his TV he would know (from Saturdays Doctorumentary) that they are just returning to their home planet of Mellissa Majoria. No extermination there.

Coming Soon To A Store Near You

June 23rd, 2008 | 0 comments »

When I read in Publishers Weekly, back in April, that Print On Demand outfit Lightning Source had signed a deal with On Demand Books I had a feeling that something was in the air.

This weekend I read in The Guardian that Blackwells book shops are to install what has been called the ATM of books. Several of their outlets are to trial the Espresso Book Machine which won the Time Magazine ‘Best Invention of the Year 2007’ in their Living catagory.

Now I don’t like to say “I told you so!” but I did predict this over a year ago in the previous incarnation of this blog.

At about $50,000 a pop I can’t see many indie shops going for one of these machines… yet. Supply and demand will, of course, bring down the price - remember how much DVD recorders used to cost - let’s hope this roll out will rejuvenate book reading and in ten years time - you never know - there may be one on every corner.

Publishing; But Not As We Know It

June 9th, 2008 | 0 comments »

There has been, for the past few weeks, several spats going on over the news that Amazon US now wants POD publishers to use their Booksurge service for printing or lose the ‘Buy Now’ button on their web site.

Yesterday I noticed this in the Sunday Herald; basically a UK publisher standing up to Amazon by way of telling them to get stuffed over their demand for greater discounts.

The way I understand publishing to work is that there is a printing price, a royalty for the author and a fulfillment price; this is what the retailer takes for selling the work. If a book costs £3.99 to print and the author royalty is set at £1.00 this makes the fulfillment £3.00 on a book costing £7.99. Where do you discount? Print more copies thereby bringing down the first price or make the authors royalty smaller. And then there are ‘returns’

Two problems here: If you print more it ‘costs’ more; paper, transport, environmental damage (returns are often just incinerated). If you reduce the royalty the author suffers.

Is the way forward to be e-books via the Kindle or the Sony reader? Probably not as figures show that most people prefer a paper book and POD is now cheaper than standard printing for runs of fewer than 1,200 copies.

Back before 1995 we had something called the Net Book Agreement. I suggest we return to it.

Pssst!... (part II)

June 2nd, 2008 | 0 comments »

I read that a 12-week national debate starts today, instigated by the UK Department of Health, entitled ‘The Future of Tobacco Control’. PDF

In these proposals are the usual steps towards cutting down on smoking but also:

The banning of cigarette machines so that kids won’t use them - suggestion: make them credit card only - you have to be over 18 to get one. Simple solution and you don’t send to the wall companies who provide this service. Out of the UK population there are c.16m people who smoke; c.350000 of these are kids (under 16); 17% of these buy from vending machines - my maths (non too hot :) ) says that this is 20500. Where’s the problem when twice this many nick them from parents/adults/friends and 78% just buy them from a shop? (just as a side note there are more kids injured/killed on the nations roads than buy cigs from vending machines - lets ban cars… )

Banning the advertising of cigarette papers and other smoking paraphernalia - Paraphernalia? What… Matches… Butane gas?

And finally, at least here, the denuding of all cigarette packaging of colour and logos. Which HMG bright-spark came up with that one? Plain white packets with a giant health warning on it and in ten point Helvetica the brand name? Perhaps it was the HM Customs dept: “How do we cut down on black market ciggies, guys?” a hand is raised: “Lets not have colour and logos on UK packs?” Fax is sent.

Coming next: All processed foods, margarines, butter, cream, most cheeses, fatty meat, sugar and sugary foods - like cakes and biscuits, food containing additives and colourings, salty foods and fast food and takeaways to display massive health warnings and be sold in plain brown wrapping with just the contents displayed?

… did I mention alcohol..?

(edited)

Pssst!...wanna buy some tobacco?

May 27th, 2008 | 0 comments »

Cigarettes will be banned from public display in shops, packets of 10 cigarettes will also be outlawed and vending machines are to be scrapped under proposals, to be published later this week by the Health Secretary Alan Johnson, to stop smoking among young people.

Will it make a difference? I doubt it very much as it’s just another lurch towards social engineering.

My crystal ball sees that the next step towards turning us into a 1984 society is a hole in the wall with a uniformed guard:

A man steps forward, through a whole-body scanner, from a long line of similarly dressed people to approach a small booth at which is sat a truculent ‘Servant of the People’ and places a small metal disc onto the appropriate place on the counter.

MR.PUNTER: Cigarettes please.

GUARD: Got your license?

Punter shows Guard photo/fingerprint/biometric card.

GUARD: Anything else?

MR.PUNTER: I’d like a pie, some milk and some cheese.

GUARD: Where’s your BMI?

Punter rolls up sleeve to show RFID implant chip which guard sweeps with hand-held scanner.

GUARD: Okay, you pass but if it goes two above… no more pies.

MR.PUNTER: Any alcohol this week?

GUARD: License?

Punter rolls up other sleeve to show a similar RFID implant chip which guard sweeps with hand-held scanner.

GUARD: You’ve still got the two units quota from last month. Sorry, no booze for you.

MR.PUNTER: But I’m having a birthday par..?

Guard makes to draw Tazer.

MR.PUNTER: Okay… okay…

GUARD: You may approach the shop.

Mr.Punter takes three steps forward towards a blank wall in which there is a half metre square metal plate, which is heavily armoured with a grill and protected by CCTV, and presses his retrieved token, with the shopping list encoded upon it, into the flashing green slot.

Seconds later a bio-degradable plastic bottle containing three pills and two forty millimetre tubes drops into the recessed tray of the counter.

‘Have a nice day.’ says a robotic voice, ‘And please attend the next queue for your government’s anti-smoking lecture. Failure to do so will negate your license to leave your property.’

I've Been...

May 24th, 2008 |

Yes, yes, I know… a month of not updating this blog. Despite now having a chair with my name on it at various doctor’s surgeries and hospitals I’m still alive.

My being big and butch I decided to have my throat ‘numbed’ for the endoscopy – which in fact I learned was a gastroscopy – I wouldn’t recommend it. Being knocked out seems much more favourable and less messy (I won’t go into that here).

The camera down the throat episode was closely followed by a dentist with pliers extracting three teeth. Drugs for this one. In there an hour and it seemed like five minutes.

Great, I thought, all the medical stuff out of the way… huh!

Two and a bit weeks of faceache, headache and toothache – even though the teeth were not there.

Back to the doctors to find I have an abscess – grrrrr!

All this time I have not written one word. Not one.

I’m seriously thinking of perhaps making a living by ‘spamming’ bookshops... might work… might not.

Decisions, Decisions...

April 22nd, 2008 |

Tomorrow is St Georges day. It is also 392 years since Shakespeare died on this day and it is UNESCO’s “World Book and Copyright Day” which marks Amsterdam as “World Book Capital City”.

So what to celebrate?

Do I raise a glass in celebration of my being English? What would be in that glass? Ale? Mead? Or do I go down the Shakespearian route and celebrate the bard’s work with a hogshead of something?

As an author perhaps I should celebrate by visiting my local library and have a cup of tea together with cucumber sandwiches sans crusts?

Just as I am pondering these wee problems the phone rings…

Tomorrow I shall be having an endoscopy.

Buggritt!

Strange...

April 18th, 2008 |

It was a bright sunny day and I was looking after two young girls who were off on an adventure at the nearby farm.

Being so warm, and my being in the car, I decided to have forty winks and so fell asleep and dreamt of my daughter when she was younger.

On wakening it was dark and as the girls had not returned I decided to go and look for them. My path took me towards shrieks and laughter and splashing. As I turned the corner into an old quarry I could see that they were enjoying the water – obviously warm – which was lit by yellowish lighting both on the walls and under the water.

Deciding that I had nothing to worry about as there were also other kids and adults present I decided to walk back to the car.

At that point I also decided to wake up.

I have a few questions to myself this morning:

a) how do you have a dream within a dream?

b) who’s slipping stuff into my last glass of wine before bed?

c) do I need to wrap more tinfoil around my head?

Author! Author!

April 16th, 2008 |

Sadie Jones, one of the six authors shortlisted for the women-only Orange Prize, has backed suggestions by novelists Tim Lott and AS Byatt that as the prize is “sexist” that there be a “Men Only” prize (no not that top shelf version) and I thoroughly agree with her.

But… let it not be along the lines of those books finalised for the Orange. Good grief! Angst, poverty, drownings, families falling apart. Uh! I know more women than men buy books but do they really want to read about all this misery? On second thoughts… probably. Take a look at the plot lines to many soaps: Angst, poverty, drownings, families falling apart.

If we are to have a book prize for men at least let it be along the lines of action / adventure or similar genres – the “Dangerous Book for Boys” is to be made into a movie and TV series so does that tell us anything?

Sponsors for the prize would probably end up being a brewery but unfortunately, at the moment, Carlsberg don’t do books.

The Stare - a short story

April 12th, 2008 |

The Stare – Copyright © 2008 Slim Palmer

Rudge had stared at the thing for almost twenty-five minutes – he’d looked at his pocket watch to check – and all it did was stare back at him.

Those blank features. No eyes. No mouth. No nose. No ears. No hair. And yet it just stared. Evilly stared.

The hand didn’t help. A single finger pointing at him. Not the index finger, no. The pinkie.

He’d even moved seats by one unit but the damn thing kept looking at him.

Come on Rudge, he chided, do something. Don’t just stare at it. Pick up your tools and do something.

The figure still stared.

There was a blank space on the desk in front of him waiting to be filled. “Do SOMETHING Rudge!” it screamed at him.

The figure stared and the hand pointed.

If it had hair, or breasts, or even shoes he could have done something. Made a start.

He could feel his groin getting hotter – almost to the point of being uncomfortable – and a fine trickle of sweat descended from his armpit onto his waist to be soaked up by the blue cotton shirt under the lab coat.

The figure stared and the hand pointed.

Perhaps if he moved again? Moved to the other side so that it wasn’t looking at him? But no. All the spaces were taken and it would be highly inconsiderate to cause a fuss this far into the project.

He shifted, uncomfortably in his, hard plastic, straight-backed high-chair and the figure still stared and the hand still pointed.

‘Problem Rudge?’ asked the voice behind him.

‘No, no. No problem.’ he answered, without looking around but covering the blank space with his arms.

Why me? Why now? Why… this? He continued to stare between the figure, the hand and the blank.

You’ve done this hundreds of times before. You come in. You take a seat. You look, for a few moments or so, and then you start. What was different today?

‘Twenty minutes.’ stated the voice, which had now moved to the other side of the room.

‘Shit!’ thought Rudge, ‘Come ON!’ he stared at the blank and then met the stare of the figure. ‘Little bastard.’ he muttered under his breath.

The figure stared back and the hand pointed. It was mocking him.

He had to do something to fill the blank but his palms were sweating and he knew that if he picked up a tool of the trade that it would slip out of his hand as if it were greased.

Another trickle of sweat descended waist-wards and it seemed to beat time to the scratching noises that were the only sounds in the otherwise silent room apart from his racing heart and the clock on the wall.

‘Five minutes, please.’

‘Fuuuu-ck!’ Rudge’s brain was in overdrive but all he could see was the stare and the blank. This was so important. Fail this and he would be… be just another… another… statistic.

That stare. How could something with no eyes stare? It just could. It was eating into his head and boiling his brain.

Pick. Up. A. Tool.

Just as he felt the five minutes were up he threw the blank into the middle of the room, clattering his chair to the floor in the panic, and ran away from it slamming the door behind him.

As he stormed down the corridor he crushed the piece of charcoal that he was still clutching and raised his voice which he hoped the whole sixth form could hear: ‘Bollixed by a bloody artist’s mannequin!’

Next!

April 9th, 2008 |

As regular readers of this blog - and of the Facebook page - will know I am almost finished the next book ‘Panto’ which will be published in November.

Trying to get the image for the front has been somewhat of an ordeal - search online image libraries, ask friends, etc.

Finally I get what I’m looking for and the rough cover has been produced.

Hurrah!

Sandy’s Shift - preview

April 3rd, 2008 |

Sandy’s Shift (A Short Story) – Copyright © 2008 by Slim Palmer

Tony fell out of the pub that was opposite the Stage Door to the Theatre Royal.

The show had finished some hour and a half ago as had been evident by the ‘punters’ streaming out of the side-street fire door – children in hand – from the pantomime. Some television soap-tart, as Aladdin, and another TV actor as Abanaza. Someone from a cop show – as the posters proclaimed. The kids had been smiling and laughing and their parents had grinned at them.

‘That was good, mum!’ a tot about six years old had exclaimed. The mother had smiled and nodded, probably thinking about the forty-two quid it had cost to keep her daughter amused for ninety minutes. It had gone on the credit card the same as the rest of Christmas.

‘Food.’ thought Tony. I need food. He staggered through the busy lane to the main thoroughfare and looked left and right. ‘Kebab’ was his next thought and retraced his steps past the pub and to a take-away on the corner.

‘Ah dinnae wan’ aal th’ fuckin’ rabbit-meat!’ exclaimed a voice as he entered the open door. ‘Ah jis’ wan’ th’ meat inna… thing… nan… peterbread.’ The drunk wavered and clutched at the counter as the young girl removed the offending salad from the polystyrene tray.

‘An’ put summore chilli ohn i’.’

The drunk paid his two-pounds-fifty and went off happy.

There were three other people in the queue. A young couple, looking nervously at the departing drunk and a geeky looking guy with short hair, thick rimmed spectacles and a backpack.

Tony took a deep breath. That last pint had done for him. What was it? Twelve? Fourteen? That and a couple of Jamesons.

‘Phwaaar!’ he exhailed.

‘Next?’ said the Asian guy behind the counter.

The young couple ordered a pizza and were promptly served and left.

The geek wanted a vegi-burger with salad.

‘You will have to wait, please.’ the Asian guy, wiping his hands down his white apron, told him. ‘I am not having any ready.’ and looked at Tony for his order.

‘Pepperoni pizza. Double garlic. Double mozzarella, anna chilli.’ he ordered.

‘Fourteen, twelve or nine?’ asked the Asian.

Tony considered for a moment. ‘Twelve.’ he eventually decided.

‘Five-fifty.’ said the woman that was manning the till.

After a few moments the pizza was duly delivered and Tony left the take-away, the pizza box balanced precariously on his left hand. He transferred it to the firmer grip of his right. It was hot.

Again, passing the pub which by now was empty and had the cleaning lights blazing so that the staff could tidy and empty ash-trays, he headed towards the main thoroughfare, staggering slightly.

It may be called Grey Street, he thought, but it was anything but. Singles; couples; a group of girls on a hen-night – the bride wearing L-plates and a bunch of young guys holding each other up. No-one could have been over the age of thirty.

‘Old man.’ he thought, ‘You’re an old man. At thirty-five you no longer fit.’

The pizza was burning so he moved it to his left hand and started down the street.

The way home, on the Quayside, was down Dean Street, around the corner and then he would let himself into the secure block of apartments. He weaved slightly as he progressed.

‘TWAT! Yer a fucking twat!’ he heard as he crossed the road at the junction.

A girl and a man were stood outside a late bar having an argument. The girl was swinging her handbag in the direction of the man and missing. She staggered on her high heels as she swung.

‘TWAT!’ she screamed again, ‘Tha’s my mate an’ y’ chattin’ her up!’ She swung again and this time the bag contacted with the man’s head even though he tried to fend off the blow.

He retaliated by slapping the girl with enough force to send her sprawling into the gutter where she ended with her short skirt up around her waist, revealing a pink g-string and her left breast releasing itself from the top of her plunging-neckline T-shirt. She also lost one of her stilettos that skidded off into the middle of the road.

She screamed.

Behind Tony a deep voice shouted: ‘OY! Enough!’ As he turned he saw two police officers, one male one female in stab-vests start to move forward – one of them reaching for his handcuffs.

‘Good cabaret.’ thought Tony, ‘Newcastle, Friday night, cabaret time.’ He decided to perch against the telecoms box that took up part of the corner of the junction and watch the ensuing dramatics.

The male officer went to the girl and helped her to her feet, giving her the handbag that had tipped a mobile phone and various other contents into the gutter.

The female police-person was not as gentle. She rounded on the man and in an instant had his arm twisted up his back in a thumb-lock.

‘Don’ hurt him!’ screamed the girl. ‘Benny..!’ she held out a hand as if pleading.

The man struggled as the policewoman pushed his arm further up his back and he fought against the restraint.

The handbag came into weapon mode once again as the girl swung at the WPC in trying to release the boyfriend. ‘Gerroff ‘im y’ cow!’ shrieked the girl. ‘Leave ‘im alone.’

The policeman jumped at the girl to save his colleague and wrapped his arms around her.

‘Fuckin’ pervert. Gerroff me tits!’ she cried.

By now a crowd had assembled to watch the cabaret and the junction was half full of Friday night revellers.

‘G’wan, pet!’ shouted one of them, ‘Knee ‘im in th’ nuts.’

Tony looked down as he felt something brush against his leg. It was a lop-eared, sand coloured dog with a curl to its lip.

‘A’ right, mate?’ he asked as he reached down to stroke its head.

The dog looked up with large rheumy eyes and blinked.

‘Fine, thank you. Usual Friday night I see.’ replied the dog.

The pizza box dropped out of Tony’s hand and thudded to the pavement spilling its contents

‘Oh,’ said the dog, ‘Thanks, but I’ve eaten today.’

Tony’s mouth dropped open as he watched the canine wander off across the junction and then, a short way up Grey Street, turn into an alleyway. Tony shook his head, blinked, and then turned to go home, muttering about being too drunk and it never really happened.

DOWNLOAD: the complete short story here

PODding Along

April 2nd, 2008 |

As I mentioned (about a year ago) in the previous incarnation of this site it would not be long before we have a juke box style machine in book shops whereby one can walk in, select a title, insert credit card and press button. Ten minutes later, possibly after a coffee, you return to said machine and find your book, literally, hot off the press. This is made possible by … The Espresso Book Machine.

In recent developments the people that produce the EBM have teamed up with Lightning Source, printer of multiple POD titles, in a “strategic agreement”.

Can’t be bad for book shops, can’t be bad for authors. However Amazon Com have said that if POD authors want to sell through their sites that the author/publisher will have to go through their printing arm, Booksurge…

Roll on the BookBox.

Smoke / Fire

March 22nd, 2008 |

Is it just me or is anyone else sick to the nines of hearing about Tibet / China on the BBC news?

Whilst it is important in the global “thing of things” why must every bulletin start with the “latest” crisis. For days now the Beeb have just re-hashed the same so called news that has been on the interwebs for a week previous. What’s it all about? Sanctioning the Olympics is my guess to get the Chinese authorities to back down – or why else would the bid have gone there?

As our athletes train for said Olympiad the son of fellow northeast writer, playwright and columnist Peter Mortimer, Dylan, has suggested that due to the fug in and around the main stadium then perhaps our athletes should use the Tyne Tunnel to acclimatise. He suggests between the hours of 2am and 6am. I suggest during the day, preferably rush hour, when the exhaust fumes are at their thickest.

A note: For all the Tyne Tunnel has a vent system for exhausting the smog – it is sometimes as thick as one of London’s former pea-soupers – they, the local authorities, in their infinite wisdom have banned smoking in your car as you travel through?

Quote Of The Week?

March 13th, 2008 |

Terry Pratchett in a Times interview on his Alzheimers: ”...I’d eat the arse out of a dead mole if it offered a fighting chance.”