Quintinjardine's Blog

Thanks for being so nice and for your climate hints, but . . . if you go back and look at that passage again, you’ll find that Mario’s in Sydney, in August, which in terms of the seasonal cycle is, as he says, the equivalent of being in Edinburgh in September. I’ve been there in August, and in Melbourne, so he does know what he’s talking about. You had me worried there for a minute or two, until I checked.

Will there be more prequels along the lines of Grievous Angel? That’s my intention, but I’m not certain when. You’ve cast the Skinner series mentally a bunch of times, and trust me, so have I. However, you’re doing it from a Canadian perspective; I’d be interested to hear some of your choices.

A  great night with Mary and Don, a Burns-ish Supper with sixteen at the table for a traditional menu, complete with MacSween’s haggis, imported somehow from Edinburgh. Thanks to both of them and to Melanie and Alan who provided great support. Perhaps one day, if I feel mischievous, I will organise a MacGonagall Supper, in celebration of Scotland’s other bard, Sir William Topaz MacGonagall, acknowledged even in his own lifetime as the world’s worst poet.

Essentially a MacGonagall supper is a Burns Supper in reverse, beginning with the poetry, whisky and cigars, followed by Cranachan, main course, haggis, all the way to the soup. However, variations are permissible; I have heard of one MacGonagall night that began with a stripper putting her clothes on. The truest of the true, though, is, they say, one that begins with the celebrants throwing up in the car park.

Further to my last post about events, I can confirm also that I’ll be doing the Edinburgh International Book Festival again, this August. Programme details will be announced in June when tickets go on sale.

Am I doing any events near Aberdeen, Perth or Dundee this year? If you count Alloa and Stirling as being near Perth, yes, Alloa Library on March 28 and  Bloody Scotland in September. Other than that, I don’t know yet.

I’m in Spain just now, so I’ve been slightly removed from the current stooshie about the Coalition government’s proposed benefit cap and hadn’t examined the detail. However I admit that when a reporter mentioned on TV news last night that the cap per family is to be £26,000, net, I raised one eyebrow, and then the other. I said nothing, though; I will leave that to others.

However, I said plenty this morning when I learned that the proposal was defeated in  the House of Lords last night and that among those voting against were ‘The Bishops’. I am not against a bi-cameral system in principle. The ancient UK model is in need of reform, but that is on the way. However there is one change that should be made today; in my opinion it should have happened long ago. Don’t you find it outrageous, that proposed legislation can be voted upon by people who are only there because they hold promoted posts in one, and one alone, of the UK’s many organised churches? I don’t care how they vote, it’s the fact that they still can that gets to me. I pray that they are disenfranchised, sooner rather than later.

If you are up and about at 07:30 GMT, have satellite TV and are bored by what’s on offer on the top channels at that time, try tuning to Russia Today. Three times a week you will find a programme called The Keiser Report, hosted by an American named Max Keiser. Max seems to be impervious to civil law on defamation. Latterly he’s been making a career out of being outrageous, and in RT he seems to have found the perfect platform, after earlier forays on Al Jazeera English and on the BBC World Service. RT gives him half an hour to say more or less what he likes about the global financial system, although curiously, he seems to omit anything Russian from his constant stream of accusation and allegation.

His technique is simple, he talks so fast and fires so many accusations that it’s impossible to analyse them all, and so the tendency is simply to say ‘Wow, I never knew that,’ and move on with him to the next. As we all know, the US  financial system is based on piracy and fraud . . . well, that’s what Max says, although he omits to mention that as a stockbroker he was one of those piratical fraudsters himself. Indeed as we all no the word ‘Yankee’ is derived from a  word meaning pirate . . .well, that’s what Max says, but you won’t find authority for that claim anywhere. He has a side-kick too, a flat faced  fellow American called Stacy Herbert who is described as an ‘analyst’ when in reality she is his straight woman, Abbott to his Costello.

As morning entertainment, it’s pretty funny, but if you want to catch it, you’d better hurry. If the world really is as Max says, he may not have long to live.

Thanks Gillian, I knew I could rely on you to ask the question. Apart from The Loner, the other two books in my top three for film/tv treatment are A Coffin for Two and Grievous Angel. However since I am omnipotent in this forum, I will squeeze a fourth title on to the podium. This one may surprise you ; Somewhere Over the Rainbow, even though it has never appeared in printed form, only as an eBook on Amazon.

High praise for The Loner; thank you very much. I’m asked often about film and television adaptation, and I’m usually rather cagey in answering. However, I’ll make a confession. Of all the works I’d like in another medium, that’s in my top three.

‘Dreams are illustrations from the book your soul is writing about you.’— Marsha Norman

What the hell does that mean?