Slim Palmer

(He lives in an anomaly of Northumberland)

Up North

February 26th, 2008 |

According to a survey by the hotel chain Travelodge the north south divide is as big as it ever was with 72 per cent of folk prejudiced against their northern or southern neighbours as reported in the DTeleg with typical southern Watford Gap mentality.

What gets me is where the north / south divide really is. Manchester is described as being ‘oop north’ whilst Luton is ‘darn sarf’. To me anything beyond Gateshead is south.

Looking at a map - and a ruler - I’ve come to this conclusion about England:

Split the map at centre and Nottingham is on the divide. Anything below is south, anything above is north.

Then I put a spanner in the works as we have in this country something called ‘The Midlands’.

Ruler: From Leeds in the north to Luton in the south is the Midlands.

QED: If you live above Harrogate you’re in the north.

Things have never been the same since Northumberland stretched from the Tweed to the Humber.

Watford Gap? Pah!

nsdivide

Publicity

February 25th, 2008 |

Well… here we go. Skriveners is printed and the online shops have it in stock (looks like some sales already at Amazon ) :)

Next we do the publicity for the tome and this afternoon the pix were taken and selected. Ho-hum… padded envelopes at the ready…

slim_skriveners

Oldies Beat Newbies

February 22nd, 2008 |

I see from this mornings DTeleg that the people at Booktrust (an independent charity set up in 1921 to encourage people of all ages to read) have asked 4000 parents to reveal their most favourite books to compile a Top 50.

The oldest book, in the top 10, is from 1865 (Alice in Wonderland) and the most recent from 2005 (Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince) and there is everything in between. What is slightly surprising (or not) is that the Potter book is the only one of JKR’s tomes in there.

TOP 10

1 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C S Lewis

2 The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle

3 Famous Five Series, Enid Blyton

4 Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne

5 The BFG, Roald Dahl

6 Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J K Rowling

7 The Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton

8 The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

9 Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

10 The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson

The poll noted that four out of five parents read a bedtime story to their children every night, for an average of 22 minutes, which is heartening as one of my regional newspapers suggested (about Albert The Third): “… the whole package would be great for reading aloud at bedtime.”

If kids are really interested in reading, or more importantly writing, I do hope that when Culture Secretary Andy Burnham announces today that plans for 5,000 apprenticeships in arts and media bodies are to be unveiled that he well remembers that writing is an art. Unfortunately I can see that it will be music, theatre, film, fashion and the graphic arts that will get the public money.

( Eric Carle’s ‘Very Hungry Caterpillar’ is said to have sold an average of one copy every minute since it was first published in 1960 - nice one Eric. )

Skriveners

February 19th, 2008 |

skriveners

The latest Albert tome is available to pre-order at several online bookshops worldwide…

Why not make an author happy and order yours now :) as it’s due out on March first.

Le Grande Idea?

February 16th, 2008 |

no_idea

Back in October I read a piece in the Indie about a “radical prescription for our health crisis” and one of them, put forward by Professor Julian Le Grand, chair of Health England and a former senior Downing Street aide to Tony Blair, was to licence tobacco smokers.

Yes. You read it correctly. If you want to buy tobacco you would need a photo-licence - renewable on an annual basis.

‘More nanny state tosh!’ I thought at the time. Not so it would appear from BBC Radio 5 Live as he’s still bleating on about it four months later and a department of health spokeswoman did not rule out such a scheme as part of the next wave of tobacco regulation. She said: ‘We will be consulting later this year on the next steps on tobacco control.’

The words that frighten me are “tobacco control” - are we not talking here about citizen control? I always thought that we all had a (relative) freedom of choice in this country and as they propose to hand all the licence money to the NHS it is not just another stealth tax as the revenue raised by smokers already goes in that direction? The proposed fee for the licence would raise £230 million if, as proposed, it is structured at £10 per and every smoker acquires one.

I’ve changed my mind about the ‘nanny’ state. It is now a bully state and I do hope that if HMG tries to bring this into being that someone will stand up for smokers because you know what..? The next thing down the line will be needing a licence to buy alcohol and then one to buy food that isn’t deemed healthy and to get pregnant and…

Will the last person to leave this country please turn out the lights for as we all “know” they create global warming and anyway you need a licence to buy an incandescent bulb.

At Last - A Bit Of Culture

February 13th, 2008 |

For several years now I have been exasperated by politicians bleating on about sport and how we need to get schoolkids to take more exercise. What if you’re not interested in footy/rugger/cricket was my cry?

In todays press ( DTele, Gdn, etc ) I pleasingly read that, finally, someone has decided that those attending school should be subjected to culture for five hours a week. Hurrah!

And then you get the naysayers… “Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Head teachers, warned of the practical problems of fitting more into the curriculum… the government needs to free schools up from the constrictures that they’ve put on them at the moment.”

Hang on here we are talking about five hours out of a thirty hour week? But… A-hah! “…practical problems … constrictures …” what he probably means is ‘Risk Assessments’, ‘Health & Safety’ and ‘off-site practicalities’: “Jones! Put that fag out!”

I was lucky in that I went to a school whereby from age 7 to 9, every Friday afternoon, we went to a gallery, museum or the theatre or some other art location. Totally enjoyed it and it didn’t half broaden your horizons.

Hurrah! for culture and a big raspberry to the naysayers: “You boy! Yes Brookes, you! Pull your finger out!”

PLR

February 12th, 2008 |

I recently received my PLR fees for last year and it was a great surprise to be given some extra money.

For those of you who don’t know what PLR (Public Lending Right) is it is a sum, fixed by HMG, that is paid to authors for readers borrowing their books from public libraries – the maximum payment is £6600.

“Over 23,000 writers, illustrators, photographers, translators and editors who have contributed to books lent out by public libraries receive PLR payments each year.”

Will I be buying a car or having a Caribbean holiday with my payments? I very much doubt it. The 21 borrowers of the ‘Alberts’ mean that I get six pence (or 5.98p in actuality) per loan so work that one out.

With over 40,000 recipients you will not be surprised to learn that only 363 writers (etc) got the full whack whilst we at the bottom of the pile numbered 17,738.

A lot of authors (3661) will have received between one (165+ borrowers) and five hundred quid (830+ borrowers). Not bad when you consider the time it takes to write a book and it’s an added bonus to your sales.

What really rankles is that HMG are cutting the funding over the next few years:

2007/08: £7,682,000

2008/09: £7,432,000

2009/10: £7,582,000

2010/11: £7,682,000

Subsequently there is a petition over at 10DS to complain about the drop in funding (no doubt next year I’ll get 5.2235p per copy). Go and sign it please as not only was it a nice surprise to get the payment but it’s also gratifying to know that 21 people actually read about Albert.

Higher Education?

February 8th, 2008 |

I read in todays Ev.Chronicle (Newcastle’s night-time ‘paper) that the Mayor of Wallsend, Coun.John Harrison, has had thoughts of building a university on the riverside of the Tyne. (I presume to hide the fact that the iconic cranes from Swan Hunters have been sold to some chap in India).

I do hope that if this project comes off that they will think about what to call the campus as a few years ago the Newcastle Poly-Tech was given Uni status and decided to call itself the Combined University (of) Newcastle (upon) Tyne. – They even got the logo done of the acronym – but settled for Northumbria University

Hopefully they won’t settle on Wallsend And Newcastle Centre (for) Knowledge, Education, Retailing (and) Schooling… but if they do it would be a great logo :)

In Six

February 6th, 2008 |

Hemmingway was once bet $10 that he couldn’t write a story in six words. His response was: “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”

In the same tradition, I note in todays D.Telegraph, that the online literary magazine Smith invited its readers to submit their own six-word memoirs and the Tele is getting its readers to do the same.

My effort? ‘Photos; theatre; logos. Now writes novels.’

Finish & Start

February 4th, 2008 |